Billionaire Democratic donors Barry Diller and Reid Hoffman said in interviews this week they hope Kamala Harris will replace Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan if she becomes U.S. president, openly rejecting a pillar of President Joe Biden’s antitrust policy.
Khan has been at the forefront of the Biden administration’s push to use U.S. antitrust law to boost competition and address high prices and low wages. Khan, who oversaw the FTC’s ban on noncompete agreements, has drawn the ire of corporate groups, but won fans including Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, for her skepticism towards big business.
Now, big money Democratic donors this week publicly said Khan should not be part of a potential Harris administration. Diller, chairman of travel site Expedia, said in a recent Bloomberg interview that he would donate the maximum allowed to Harris’ campaign. He said in an interview on CNBC on Friday that he would lobby Harris to replace Khan, saying Khan was against “almost anything” business wants to do to grow efficiently.
Lots of Republicans don’t like Amazon. Khan became famous as an academic by publishing articles saying how Amazon needed to be reined in, that existing antitrust law wouldn’t do it, and that such-and-such changes should be made. She got brought into the FTC basically because of that.
So the goldilocks size of business.