Lina Khan, the head of the Federal Trade Commission, has proven to be a contentious figure—arguably because, unlike some of the FTC chairs who came before her, she seems intent on actually doing her job. Under her chairmanship, the FTC has aggressively pursued actions against some of America’s largest tech companies, ruffling the feathers of Silicon Valley C-suites. As a result, there are more than a few people who want to see her gone when the next administration—be it Trump or Harris—enters the White House.
A new report suggests there’s a good chance that Harris will keep Khan, should she win the presidency. The political outlet NOTUS writes that one of Harris’ top economic advisers, Brian Deese, has “advocated” for Harris to keep the young federal official in her role. The outlet cites two sources familiar with the campaign.
Gizmodo reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
The list of tech executives that have taken shots at Khan is long. Earlier this year, LinkedIn billionaire and Democratic Party donor Reid Hoffman made waves when he publicly suggested that, should she win the presidency, Harris should fire Khan. Hoffman said that Khan was “not helping America” and that he hoped that “Vice President Harris would replace her.” Notably, Hoffman is a major investor in Microsoft, which has been under fire from Khan’s agency over its various business deals. Hoffman later appeared on Jake Tapper’s show on CNN and tried to defend himself against accusations of influence peddling.
Other tech companies have also been critical of the regulator. Last summer, lawyers for the company then known as Twitter accused Khan’s agency of being biased against the platform and its new owner, Elon Musk. According to Jon Stewart, he was instructed by officials at Apple not to interview Khan during his short-lived Apple TV show, The Problem with Jon Stewart. Amazon once accused Khan of having unfairly “made up her mind” about “Amazon’s antitrust culpability.” It isn’t hard to imagine that other corporate goliaths who have been the subject of FTC scrutiny (like Meta, for instance) are also, presumably not fans of hers.
As FTC head, Khan has initiated a number of aggressive actions against the tech industry’s biggest players. Last September, Khan sued Amazon, alleging it had exerted illegal monopoly power over markets that allowed it to inflate prices and reduce product quality. Last year, the FTC under Khan proposed a blanket prohibition on Meta’s monetization of youth data. In 2022, Khan’s FTC sued to disrupt the merger between Microsoft and Blizzard-Activision, though her efforts were ultimately thwarted by a federal judge. The FTC has also sought to unwind Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp (though that effort predates Khan’s tenure with the agency, it has continued under her leadership). Khan has also probed the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft and expressed concerns for the growing concentration of power within the AI industry, and has sought to spotlight the vast growth of consumer surveillance via adtech in the United States.
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