Lina Khan: The most hated woman on Wall Street

FTC Chair Lina Khan is in the billionaires' crosshairs for daring to take on monopoly capitalist power. | Photo via AP

When you’re on the enemies list of some of America’s biggest right-wing tech and media billionaires, you must be doing something right. That’s exactly where Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan finds herself these days.

Venture capitalist and pharma kingpin Mark Cuban, Fox broadcasting founder Barry Diller, LinkedIn chief Reid Hoffman, and others on Wall Street all agree: Khan has got to go.

If Donald Trump retakes the White House on Nov. 5, they’ll probably get their wish. Though Trump running mate J.D. Vance has mused about how it might be good if Khan breaks up the tech monopolies that stifle his benefactors in the start-up capital space like Peter Thiel, mainstream GOP opinion is that Khan is the enemy and should be canned as quickly as possible.

Cuban alleges that Khan puts American capitalism’s competitiveness at “risk” and jeopardizes the country’s chances for “global dominance.” Diller, whose company is reportedly facing multiple FTC investigations, told business network CNBC that Khan is “a dope.” Hoffman calls her “a person that is not helping America” and said she’s “waging a war on American business.”

Their accusations are all reminiscent of the language Trump has used to describe women who’ve politically opposed him—Hillary Clinton, AOC, Ilhan Omar, Harris, and the list goes on.

But here’s the kicker: Cuban, Diller, and Hoffman are all major Democratic donors.

Cuban is the big power behind “Business Leaders for Harris” and appears on television regularly on the vice president’s behalf. Hoffman, a notable among the Silicon Valley crowd, has given at least $10 million to the various arms of the Democratic machine this election cycle. Diller, meanwhile, has ponied up hundreds of thousands of dollars and appeared on countless news programs to bolster the Democratic campaign.

All three have chastised their ruling class buddies for backing Trump, but they worry that if Kamala Harris wins, she might keep Khan in the top spot at the FTC. That’s why they’re going all out to lobby the Democratic nominee to dump Khan, launching a media onslaught aimed at undermining the public’s view of her and raising questions about her fitness for the job.

They hope their status as “liberal billionaires” gives them leverage to bend the Harris campaign to their will. It’s a classic case of pay-to-play that seeks to leave those of us without deep pockets standing on the outside with no influence.

But what is it about Khan that has the leading lights of the capitalist class so agitated?

Wall Street Enemy No. 1

For years, the agency she heads, the FTC, has rarely raised much controversy. Charged with enforcing consumer protection and antitrust laws, it mostly kept its head down after being nearly dismantled in 1980 for waging war on the big tobacco companies and the sugary food industry.

All that changed when President Joe Biden appointed Khan to helm the agency in 2021. Under her leadership, the FTC has once more become an anti-monopoly juggernaut, taking on some of the biggest names in Corporate America.

Progressive economists took notice of Khan after she wrote a prize-winning article as a Yale law student in 2017 titled “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” It set off a bomb in U.S. business and legal circles with its argument that U.S. anti-monopoly law was too narrowly focused on simply keeping consumer prices down.

The criterion for triggering antitrust enforcement has long been price-gouging, but Khan argued that the harm of monopoly was far bigger. Using Amazon as her example, she wrote that platform-based business models allow and encourage the kind of anti-competitive practices that end up giving major corporations a stranglehold on the market and set the stage for consumer and worker abuse.

As FTC chair, she has revolutionized the regulatory front in the struggle against monopoly capitalism. Here are just a few of her greatest hits:

• Supported a Justice Department suit against Google for its anticompetitive mergers and its bullying of publishers and advertisers into using its ad technology. The government is pursuing a breakup of the company, but the case is still ongoing.
• Backed the DOJ in another suit against Google for coercing phone makers and computer companies into making its search engine the default on their devices, cornering 90% of the internet search market. Regulators won their case, and a trial to determine a remedy is set for 2025.
• Taking on three big pharmacies—CVS Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx—for artificially raising prices on insulin and blocking consumer access to cheaper alternatives. The full details of the complaint are still to come.
• Seeking to block the Kroger-Albertsons grocery store merger, which would drive up prices for shoppers already reeling from inflation and suppress the wages of supermarket workers.
• Joined together with 40 states to challenge Facebook owner Meta over its purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp, which created a social media near-monopoly. The case is awaiting a hearing on whether it will go to trial.
• Filed a lawsuit together with 17 states against Amazon for putting the squeeze on merchants and using its control of the biggest online retail platform to restrain competing brands and promote its own products and services. A trial date is set for 2026.
• Tried to block Microsoft’s buyout of video game company Activision Blizzard. Microsoft makes the consoles, while Activision Blizzard produces the games that consumers play on them. A judge sided with the corporations in this case, allowing the vertical merger to go ahead.
• Sought to protect workers with a ban on the non-compete agreements that bosses use to tie employers to a particular company by limiting their ability to switch jobs in search of better wages and working conditions. After several rounds of legal battles, a judge has blocked the pro-worker measure, but Khan’s FTC plans to appeal.
• And just this Wednesday, the agency adopted what’s called the “click to cancel” rule which requires businesses like gyms and retailers to make it as easy to cancel subscriptions as it was to sign up in the first place. The rule is meant to protect people from the predatory charges businesses put on their credit cards on a recurring basis while leaving them with confusing or dead-end procedures for quitting.

This last measure put Khan back in the crosshairs of the billionaires this week. Companies that sell digital and membership-based products especially hate that the FTC is trying to close the door on a profitable and easy-to-collect revenue stream.

The public, however, loves the new rule. According to recent polling carried out by Data for Progress, 83% of Americans—including 80% of Republicans—endorse click-to-cancel. Similar margins back FTC efforts like banning junk fees such as “convenience” charges, stopping corporations from monetizing children’s social media data, and cracking down on AI companies that knowingly allow their platforms to be used to harm consumers.

Canceling monopoly

These actions are the real reason why capitalists like Cuban, Hoffman, and Diller are reaching for their media megaphones to try to discredit Khan and sway Harris to follow their diktats.

“When Big Tech and Big Business billionaires attack Lina Khan and the FTC, they are attacking common-sense consumer protections,” Emily Peterson-Cassin, director of the corporate power portfolio at Demand Progress Education Fund, said in a statement sent to People’s World.

Referring to the click-to-cancel rule as an example, Peterson-Cassin said, “On one side, you have Lina Khan and the FTC taking action to stop companies from harassing and confusing consumers into paying for subscriptions they don’t want. On the other side, you have billionaire CEOs trying to stop the FTC’s work to empower consumers.”

Together with the Revolving Door Project, the group recently launched an educational website, “Billionaires Against Khan,” aimed at exposing the anti-worker, anti-consumer, and anti-job efforts of some of the country’s richest individuals.

So far, Vice President Harris has been silent when it comes to whether she’d keep Khan in place should she win the White House. But progressive leaders in Congress are stating boldly what they think a Harris administration should do.

“Let me make this clear, since billionaires have been trying to play footsie with the ticket: Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., vowed in a post to X (Twitter). “And that is a promise. She proves this admin fights for working people. It would be terrible leadership to remove her.”

Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders declared that Khan is “the best FTC chair in modern history.” He said that “by taking on corporate greed and illegal monopolies,” Khan “is doing an exceptional job preventing large corporations from ripping-off consumers and exploiting workers.”

Protecting the anti-monopoly FTC from being cut off at the knees requires first of all blocking a MAGA takeover of the White House and the Senate. Only by preserving Democratic control of both the executive branch and the upper house of Congress do workers and consumers have a chance of keeping someone like Khan in place.

But even with a Harris victory, there will still be a fight to stop the billionaires who use their dollars to try to control the Democratic Party from imposing their will and putting Khan on the chopping block.

Mobilization is key, both now and after Nov. 5—because the class struggle carries on long after the ballots are counted on Election Day.

As with all op-eds published by People’s World, this article reflects the views of its author.

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CONTRIBUTOR

C.J. Atkins

C.J. Atkins is the managing editor at People's World. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto and has a research and teaching background in political economy and the politics and ideas of the American left.