FTC Chair Lina Khan got under Big Tech’s skin. Now they want her gone.

In the wake of a federal judge ruling that Google is a monopoly for its search business practices, all eyes are turning to other antitrust cases in the works. But even before the Google decision brought by the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and its celebrity chair were feeling the political heat.

FTC Chair Lina Khan has made a name for herself by placing a target on massive tech companies in the United States. The 35-year-old was appointed by President Joe Biden to shake up antitrust enforcement. But some Democratic megadonors are hoping Vice President Kamala Harris will ease the regulatory scrutiny and appoint a more moderate chair.

Last month, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman called on the vice president to replace Khan if she is elected in November. The billionaire previously donated $10 million to the Biden campaign before the president dropped out of the race and has since thrown his support behind Harris.

“I do think that Lina Khan is a person who is not helping America in her job and what she’s doing,” Hoffman told CNN in July. “And so I would hope that Vice President Harris would replace her.”

Hoffman has since clarified that his position on Khan is not a condition for supporting Harris. But his comments, and similar ones made by IAC Chair Barry Diller, are catching attention.

“Hoffman’s comment is highly provocative and I think [it is] unusual to say, ‘Bring me the head of the FTC chair, get her out of the chair’s position,'” former FTC chair and commissioner Bill Kovacic told Straight Arrow News. “A new president could not literally fire her. She can’t be removed from the commission but she can be demoted simply by the president signing a letter saying, ‘You are the former chair now, now you’re a commissioner.'”

But the opinion of Khan is split and that split doesn’t happen on political lines. Earlier this year, vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance said the FTC chair was “doing a pretty good job.”

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full response in the video above.

Simone Del Rosario: To hear that an FTC chair is being brought up in the conversation of a presidential election and donations to the Democratic candidate for president, what do you make of this environment? What does it tell you about how [Khan has] been received in this world and the direction she’s decided to take?

Bill Kovacic: I suppose in the modern world, nothing should surprise us, but Hoffman’s comment is highly provocative and I think unusual to say, ‘Bring me the head of the FTC chair, get her out of the chair’s position.’ A new president could not literally fire her. She can’t be removed from the commission, but she can be demoted simply by the president signing a letter saying, ‘You are the former chair now, now you’re a commissioner.’

As a footnote, Lina Khan is the most famous competition policy enforcer in the world today, globally. There’s no part of the world you can go to without people knowing who she is. And if you identify yourself as a U.S. citizen, you will be asked immediately, ‘Do you know about Lina Khan?’

So to step forward and say, ‘I want her out of there, in fact, her departure by suggestion is a condition of our support and our enthusiasm for your campaign,’ is quite extraordinary. It does show how Lina Khan has touched a nerve. And I’d say a very sensitive nerve within that community to the degree that no other regulator in my lifetime – going back into the 1970s since Michael Pertschuk who was the chair of the FTC and a strong advocate of powerful competition and consumer protection intervention – nobody has aroused that kind of specific condemnation in that period of time.

I suppose the chair can look at that and say, ‘Good, it’s working. If they loved me, I’m not doing my job.’ And I think in part, she defines her effectiveness, a rough measure of her effectiveness is the vocal exuberant statement of firms in the sector who are saying these things because here we have an agency that’s doing things that really do hurt in some ways.

So I find it an extraordinary comment, but it truly is a testament to how she has changed the debate, changed the focus of attention, and has brought to bear the resources of her agency in a way that has aroused their concern.

A fascinating question is how much will Vice President Harris respond to this if she becomes President Harris. What would happen in a President Harris administration with regard to policy and Big Tech? Would she, in small steps, walk away from the approach that the Biden administration has taken? Will she quietly seek appointments to bring a more moderating influence into the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice? Or will she say, ‘This is why we are in the White House. This is why we have power. We’re gonna exercise it this way.’

Would elected officials such as [Sen.] Elizabeth Warren, [Sen.] Bernie Sanders, as well as some of their counterparts in the Republican Party, the [Sen.] Josh Hawley team, for example, would they rise up and say, ‘You will not touch these programs? We demand that these programs go ahead. This is crucial to the larger progressive agenda and you will not undercut it.’

I suspect if [Harris] took visible steps to retreat from the Khan program or the program that Jonathan Kanter has laid out in the Department of Justice, she could very well face the wrath of the progressives, left and right, in Congress. I don’t think she’d want to provoke that fight openly, so the means of adjustment might be far more subtle and less visible to the naked eye.

The appointment of individuals who have a somewhat more cautious approach to applying the law; one approach would be to say with respect to these Big Tech cases, ‘We already have a very full plate and part of my job is to bring them home, to make sure that they land safely and that the projects work. I’m going to do that. I’m going to worry less about initiating new path-breaking measures. I’m going to make sure that those are brought to a successful conclusion.’ That could be one approach she takes.

Another area where she could back off is merger control. And I think for the Big Tech companies, for [Marc] Andreessen, for Hoffman, for others, they are less disturbed by the big monopolization cases than they are by the aggression with which the FTC and the Department of Justice have gone after deal making. And that might be an area where the Harris team, after January of 2025, backs off a bit and isn’t quite so aggressive as the FTC and DOJ have been.

That would be the barometer for me. That’s the real indication of whether we’re seeing an adjustment in attitude towards tech is the question of merger control. I would not expect her to tamper with these big cases.

I wouldn’t expect [former President Donald] Trump to do it either. The DOJ search case that we’ve been talking about began in his presidency. The FTC case against Meta began in his presidency. The investigation of Apple that led to a case began in his presidency. And he has no fondness for that sector. His vice presidential candidate partner, Senator [J.D.] Vance, has no fondness for that sector. He said, ‘I think Khan’s doing a good job.’

I could imagine that both of them would say, ‘What’s the right remedy in this case? It’s to break them up. We have to de-concentrate these sectors to take their power away because we don’t trust them,’ for different reasons.

With regard to these Big Tech monopolization cases, I think those carry on where we could see a change in both a Harris administration and, maybe more visibly in a Trump administration, is a change in merger control. And maybe that’s what Hoffman and his counterparts have been complaining [about]. That’s their real grievance here is that we can’t do deals.