In June of 2021, at just 32 years old, Lina Khan was sworn in as the youngest-ever chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Born in England to parents of Pakistani descent, she moved to the United States at 11-years-old. Khan obtained a B.A. from Williams College in political theory in 2010 and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 2017.
Khan served as a journalist, policy analyst and later a legal director for the Open Markets Institute, a left-leaning think tank, from 2011 to 2018.
From 2019 to 2020 she was a legal counsel for the U.S. House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, and an associate professor at Columbia Law School.
Since 2017, her viral academic journal “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” has allowed for a new approach to enforcing antitrust laws.
In a “60 Minutes” Interview with Lesley Stahl, Khan explained, “Amazon’s illegal practices were actually raising prices for consumers because it had illegally muscled out rivals, locked them out of the market in ways that if you had more competition that Amazon hadn’t squashed, consumers would be even better off.”
President Joe Biden appointed Khan to be the Chair of the FTC and with a bi-partisan vote from the Senate, she was sworn in.
Politicians from both major political parties praised her work.
According to Republican Senator and Vice President nominee J.D. Vance, Khan has “been very smart about trying to go after some of these big tech companies.”
Additionally, Massachusetts’s Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren claimed that with Khan, “we have a huge opportunity to make big structural change.”
The changes Khan has brought during her tenure at the FTC include lawsuits aimed at Big Tech companies and drug companies.
One success that FTC has been widely celebrated for has been lowering inhaler prices from hundred of dollars to $35. By sending warning letters to companies who made bogus patents for parts of the inhaler, the FTC allowed thousands of people to have affordable access to the life-saving device.
Khan and the FTC have filed lawsuits against Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.
Additionally, the agency also addressed issues of data privacy in the courtroom, along with efforts to lower grocery prices by blocking the largest ever merger of two companies: Kroger and Albertsons.
Due to losing some major legal battles, Khan has come under pressure for being aggressive yet unsuccessful.
Khan claims that regardless of her stance, the FTC and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice have only investigated a small percentage of the business deals proposed every year.
While there have been major losses, there have been many deals that are not happening because there’s been an increased vigilance amongst business individuals according to Khan.
“That deterrence is a huge marker of success,” Khan claimed.
The first antitrust law was passed in 1890: The Sherman Act. The Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act were passed in 1914, the latter of which created the federal agency Khan heads today.
Antitrust laws aim to protect consumers rights, promote competition among business and prosecute unlawful business practices and mergers.
Khan’s aggressive stance on antitrust has come after 40 years of, “letting giant corporations accumulate more and more power,” according to Biden. In 2021, he claimed that those 40 years led to “less growth, weakened investment, [and] fewer small businesses.”
Khan’s term was set to expire on September 25, 2024. However her tenure will continue indefinitely till the 47th President decides on the next FTC chair.
