Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan is the face of the “hipster antitrust” movement, but she’s also got friends in the MAGA movement.
Khan, 35, is the youngest person ever to lead the FTC. As a Biden appointee, she is unlikely to stay on once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, though her aggressive stance toward trade regulation and battles with Big Tech may not be completely scrapped under the Trump administration.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz is the talk of Washington after Trump unexpectedly nominated him to lead the Department of Justice. But while Gaetz is undoubtedly a controversial MAGA firebrand, he’s also an economic populist and a Kahn fan who has urged Trump to keep her at the FTC.
“I hope her work continues in the Trump administration,” Gaetz told NOTUS.
Gaetz is not the only person in Trump’s inner circle to praise Khan. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance has said Khan is doing a “pretty good job” in her role, adding later that he’s impressed with her work targeting big tech companies while avoiding “the ridiculous woke stuff.”
A third MAGA man, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) also backs Khan, saying in 2021 that he appreciates her emphasis on competition and fights against anticompetitive behavior.
Khan broke onto the antitrust scene while still a law student at Yale by penning the 2017 legal paper “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” She later served as counsel for a judiciary subcommittee and then was appointed by President Joe Biden to join the FTC in 2021, with 21 Republican senators voting to confirm her.
Republicans have mostly cheered Khan’s work combatting big tech, but have fiercely criticized some of her other efforts, such as repeated attempts to block mergers. She got a three-hour grilling before the House Judiciary Committee last July, with GOPers mostly going on the attack and Democrats defending her.
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) brought up Khan’s 0-4 record in merger trials during the hearing, asking, “Why are you losing so much?” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) called Khan a bully who has lurched her agency to the left.
Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) accused Khan of harassing Twitter (now X) because she sent the company 12 demand letters in 10 weeks. “That seems like more than harassment, that almost seems like an obsession,” he said.
But Gaetz had a relatively friendly exchange with Khan over the privacy of Ring cameras, as did Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who lamented the enormous lobbying influence of big tech.
The FTC did not respond to questions from the Washington Examiner.
The question going forward will be just how much Trump embraces the populist wing of the Republican Party that he himself helped establish, especially with Vance as his new wingman.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the chief economic policy adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, said he hopes Trump moves on from Khan.
“I would not reappoint her,” he said. “I think the policy foundation of giving up on the consumer welfare standard is an enormous mistake, and her track record on cases is not very good. So on objectives and execution, she is below par.”
Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, also hopes Khan is replaced.
“She’s been the single most detrimental person in government to the U.S. economy,” he said. “She’s just deadly for business in the United States.”
Khan has gone after the largest tech companies during her tenure, launching lawsuits against Google, Meta, and Amazon. She also tried unsuccessfully to ban noncompete clauses and has been hobbled by reports of tanking employee morale at the agency she leads.
But Khan’s approach doesn’t fit neatly into ideological lines. Some of Vice President Kamala Harris’s most high-profile supporters, like billionaire Mark Cuban and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, urged her to dump Khan if elected, and Harris remained tight-lipped about the matter on the campaign trail.
Khan thus appears to be a good example of the horseshoe theory of politics, with MAGA faithful like Gaetz and Hawley joining progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in backing her.
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That likely won’t be enough to save Khan, who campaigned with Democrats this cycle and was accused by Jordan of violating the Hatch Act, but it does mean that her legacy won’t be completely undone even if she’s replaced. She acknowledged as much herself during Thursday’s open meeting of FTC commissioners.
“I’ve been so grateful and appreciative of the bipartisan support for [our] work, including from Vice President-elect Vance and former congressman Gaetz, who I understand was just announced as a future attorney general,” Khan said. “It’ll be really terrific for the bipartisanship around this work to continue.”
