How Lina Khan became an election hot topic

Khan “will be fired soon,” Elon Musk, the owner of the social platform X and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, wrote on X on Thursday.

Few government officials elicited such intense bipartisan attention before the election, making speculation regarding the future of Khan — nominated in 2021 by President Joe Biden — one of the most avid parlor games in Washington.

The fixation on Khan, 35, is uncommon for a leader at the long-under-the-radar FTC, which regulates companies that subvert competition and deceive consumers. It reflects the high stakes of the Biden administration’s wide-ranging program to dampen the power of America’s biggest corporations — which either presidential candidate could reverse if victorious.

Scrutiny from the FTC and the Justice Department has led to the collapse of billions of dollars in recent corporate deals. Lawsuits filed by the agencies could break up big American brands such as Google, Amazon and the parent company of Ticketmaster. Khan has argued to regulate artificial intelligence, ordered companies to make it easier to cancel online subscriptions and banned noncompete agreements, which stop workers from taking a job with a rival employer.

The backlash from the business world and its Washington allies has been fierce — and it ramped up before the vote.

“It’s now clear that Chair Khan will stop at nothing to accomplish the radical left’s desired ends,” said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., in a statement announcing a House Oversight Committee’s report critical of her leadership last week.

In a September interview with The New York Times, Khan acknowledged that she had been under fire, but dismissed much of the criticism.

“When you say something like, ‘Well, there’s a lot of visceral dislike of what our agency is doing,’ I think you have to, first of all, figure out which are the voices that you’re privileging and focusing on,” she said. “We try to open our doors and make sure we are keeping the full country in mind, rather than people who have access to power.”

She said she could not “predict what’s going to happen in November or after that.”

In a September interview on “60 Minutes,” Khan said it would be an honor to stay in her job. A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment.

Many agency observers expect Trump to replace Khan if he is elected. Traditionally, presidents choose leaders from their own party for agencies like the FTC.

“The likelihood that she would serve for a substantial amount of time, even weeks, in a Trump administration, I think, is close to zero,” said Bill Kovacic, a former chair of the FTC.

Khan’s fate under Vice President Kamala Harris is harder to predict, experts who track the agency said. The seven-year term for Khan’s seat on the commission expired in September. The next president could replace her by designating one of the other four commissioners as chair. Or the president could nominate a new chair, and Khan would have to step down when the Senate confirmed that person.

Khan, who rose to fame as a scholar who argued that antitrust law should not let behemoths like Amazon go unchecked, became the youngest leader of the agency since it was created more than a century earlier.

She quickly revived an FTC lawsuit to break up Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, which was first filed under the Trump administration. The agency also sued Amazon, accusing it of cementing a monopoly in online retail by squeezing merchants and favoring its own services. The FTC sued, unsuccessfully, to block Microsoft’s acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard. And the agency is fighting to block Kroger’s $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons.

Khan’s criticism of corporate concentration across the economy generated a fierce backlash from the business community. Amazon and Meta called for her to recuse herself from investigations and lawsuits against them because of her previous criticism. Lobbying groups complained to lawmakers and in opinion pieces that she was sending a chill across the economy.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials repeated in an interview Monday that Khan operated a “black box” on merger reviews, coming up with unpredictable theories for blocking deals.

“This is not her job,” Neil Bradley, chief policy officer for the chamber, said of Khan’s creation of business regulations. “What is really of concern is her willingness to break the norms, rules and even the legal requirements that exist on the FTC to advance her agenda.”

Cuban said in an email that he hadn’t been involved in Harris’ personnel decisions, and a spokesperson for Hoffman said he had never spoken directly with Harris about her. Diller declined to comment.

Jonathan Kanter, the head of antitrust at the Justice Department, in contrast has stayed relatively under the radar. His agency has sued Google, Apple and Ticketmaster’s owner, LiveNation, accusing them of operating as monopolies, but he hasn’t faced the same public scrutiny.

Khan has won some accolades, including from Democratic politicians and Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who have commended her actions against Big Tech.

“Lina Khan is the best FTC Chair in modern history,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wrote on X in October. “By taking on corporate greed & illegal monopolies, Lina is doing an exceptional job preventing large corporations from ripping-off consumers & exploiting workers.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., warned in an October post on X, “Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.