Business Moguls Urge Harris to Dump Biden’s FTC Chair Lina Khan

Lina Khan has never been popular with billionaires, but now two prominent business titans want Vice President Kamala Harris to ditch the Federal Trade Commission chair if she wins the White House.
In televised interviews last week, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and media mogul Barry Diller called on Harris to fire Khan, saying her aggressive enforcement agenda is bad for business. Both men are also affiliated with companies facing FTC scrutiny.
Khan, who at 35 is the youngest person to helm the FTC, has ramped up antitrust and consumer protection enforcement, a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s economic policy. She has become a flash point for business, drawing the ire of advocacy groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some congressional Republicans, who argue that she has been overstepping the agency’s authority. 
Khan is “waging war on American business,” Hoffman, who also sits on Microsoft Corp.’s board, said in a CNN interview last week. 
Microsoft is facing an FTC probe over its relationship with OpenAI and the company’s decision to hire most of the staff of Inflection AI – an artificial intelligence startup Hoffman co-founded. In addition, the FTC is still suing the company over its acquisition of game studio Activision Blizzard Inc. even though the deal closed last year. Microsoft declined to comment, referring questions to Hoffman. 
In a follow-up interview on Tuesday evening, Hoffman — who has donated $7 million to Future Forward PAC, which is backing Harris — said he hasn’t spoken to her about his concerns with Khan and sought to distinguish between his role as a donor and an expert on the tech industry.
“I’ve never tied the two ever in any conversation I’ve ever had,” Hoffman said, who has a net worth of $5 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
A Harris campaign spokesperson declined to comment. FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar declined to comment on the remarks about Khan, and said the agency can’t comment on any ongoing investigations. Hoffman didn’t respond to a request for comment via Microsoft or an email to him at Greylock Partners, where he now works.
Businesses Stunned
President Joe Biden stunned the business community in 2021 when he elevated Khan — then a member of a progressive antitrust movement considered on the fringe of mainstream policy — to FTC chair hours after she won Senate confirmation as a commissioner. The agency is run by five commissioners and the president choses one to be chair.
Meanwhile, GOP vice presidential candidate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, has embraced Khan, saying she is “one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job.”
Diller, who is chairman of IAC Inc., said in an interview with CNBC last week that he would also urge Harris to drop Khan. “I think she’s a dope.”
Diller subsequently reined in his comment in a statement to Bloomberg News. “I said ‘she’s a dope.’ She isn’t,” said Diller, who’s worth $5.3 billion according to Bloomberg’s wealth index. “She’s smart, but I believe overreaches in disrupting sensible business combinations.” 
Diller sits on the board of MGM Resorts International, which sued the FTC in April over an investigation into a September cyberattack that temporarily shut down its computer systems. The company has sought to disqualify Khan who was visiting MGM Grand on the Las Vegas strip when the cyberattack occurred. In a court filing, the FTC said that MGM hasn’t complied with its efforts to probe the incident, the third cyberattack the company has disclosed since 2019.
Last year, the FTC also reached a settlement with HomeAdvisor Inc. – which is affiliated with IAC’s Angi Inc. – that the company pay up to $7.2 million for using allegedly deceptive sales tactics to sell project leads to small businesses. HomeAdvisor didn’t admit liability in the settlement. IAC declined to comment on Diller’s remarks. 
Starwood Capital Group Chairman Barry Sternlicht amped up criticism of Khan in a CNBC interview Tuesday in which he also revealed that Starwood is facing FTC scrutiny over real estate pricing.
“We all think the FTC has lost their center,” Sternlicht said in the interview. “Collectively, we and another company own less than a tenth of one percent of the market and they’re looking at our pricing.”
Sternlicht declined further comment in an email. Starwood didn’t respond to requests for comment.
With assistance from Emily Birnbaum.
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