Lina Khan Is Just Getting Started (She Hopes) [View all]

Biden’s FTC chair has toughened merger oversight, taken on noncompetes and made the donor class crazy. She hints that there’s a lot more to come, if she’s given the chance.


By Josh Eidelson and Max Chafkin
October 9, 2024 at 5:00 PM EDT

A few days after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July, Reid Hoffman appeared on CNN and voiced his support for Kamala Harris, with an asterisk. Hoffman, a Democratic megadonor and venture capitalist best known for co-founding LinkedIn, made his case for Harris as the candidate of business. He said that as a former senator from California, she understood the value of his industry. He said that in contrast to Donald Trump, she represented stability, unity, the rule of law. But there was at least one person he hoped she wouldn’t keep around: Lina Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Khan, he said, was overstepping her bounds, “waging war” on business and “not helping America.”

Soon after, media mogul Barry Diller, chairman of IAC Inc., echoed the call for Khan’s ouster, telling CNBC she was a “dope.” He and Hoffman joined the bipartisan club of tech figures who’ve singled her out for criticism, including venture capitalists Vinod Khosla, Chamath Palihapitiya, Joe Lonsdale and Peter Thiel. What neither Hoffman nor Diller mentioned was that their interest wasn’t exactly dispassionate. At the time both billionaires called for Khan’s firing, she was investigating their businesses.

In August the FTC announced an $8.5 million settlement with an IAC subsidiary it accused of deceiving workers. The company didn’t admit wrongdoing. Diller retracted his use of the word “dope” but not his call for Khan’s removal. He declined to comment for this story.

SNIP
During a morning sit-down in her Washington office in September, Khan says she’s gotten used to flak. “It’s no surprise to me personally that monopolists, and executives associated with monopolies, would prefer that the anti-monopoly cops just go away,” she says, flashing a smile before snapping back into cop mode. “But that’s not the job that we’ve been given.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-09/lina-khan-on-a-second-ftc-term-ai-price-gouging-data-privacy?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTcyODUwNzczNywiZXhwIjoxNzI5MTEyNTM3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTTDNYMFVEV1gyUFMwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDQThGQ0Y4NkY1QjY0ODlCODA4ODkwNTFBNjMxRERBRCJ9.jezqDL4Ds-z2V0eCqXlY8F4CwCUVmG415jWK0SKE764

Despite rumors/speculations, I believe Khan is a shoo-in with Harris.