In the run-up to the election, Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, was called a dope, partisan and unhelpful by Democrats and Republicans. Democratic donors including the billionaires Reid Hoffman, Barry Diller and Mark Cuban called for her ouster from the agency. Last week, a report from the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee accused her of having a far-left agenda and weaponizing the agency.
Ms. Khan “will be fired soon,” Elon Musk, the owner of X and a supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, wrote on his platform on Thursday.
Few government officials elicited such intense bipartisan attention ahead of the election, making speculation regarding the future of Ms. Khan — nominated in 2021 by President Biden — one of the most avid parlor games in Washington.
The fixation on Ms. Khan, 35, is uncommon for a leader at the long-under-the-radar F.T.C., which regulates companies that subvert competition and deceive consumers. It reflects the high stakes of the Biden administration’s wide-ranging program to dampen the power of America’s biggest corporations — which either presidential candidate could reverse if victorious.
Scrutiny from the F.T.C. and the Justice Department has led to the collapse of billions of dollars in recent corporate deals. Lawsuits filed by the agencies could break up big American brands like Google, Amazon and the parent company of Ticketmaster. Ms. Khan has argued to regulate artificial intelligence, ordered companies to make it easier to cancel online subscriptions and banned noncompete agreements, which stop workers from taking a job with a rival employer.
The backlash from the business world and its Washington allies has been fierce — and it ramped up before the vote.
“It’s now clear that Chair Khan will stop at nothing to accomplish the radical left’s desired ends,” said Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky, in a statement announcing a House Oversight Committee’s report critical of her leadership last week.
In a September interview with The New York Times, Ms. Khan acknowledged that she had been under fire, but dismissed much of the criticism.
“When you say something like, ‘Well, there’s a lot of visceral dislike of what our agency is doing,’ I think you have to, first of all, figure out which are the voices that you’re privileging and focusing on,” she said. “We try to open our doors and make sure we are keeping the full country in mind, rather than people who have access to power.”
She said she could not “predict what’s going to happen in November or after that.”
In a September interview on “60 Minutes,” Ms. Khan said it would be an honor to stay in her job. A spokesman for the F.T.C. declined to comment.
Many agency observers expect Mr. Trump to replace Ms. Khan if he is elected. Traditionally, presidents choose leaders from their own party for agencies like the F.T.C.
“The likelihood that she would serve for a substantial amount of time, even weeks, in a Trump administration, I think, is close to zero,” said Bill Kovacic, a former chairman of the F.T.C.
Ms. Khan’s fate under Vice President Kamala Harris is harder to predict, experts who track the agency said. The seven-year term for Ms. Khan’s seat on the commission expired in September. The next president could replace her by designating one of the other four commissioners as chair. Or the president could nominate a new chair, and Ms. Khan would have to step down when the Senate confirmed that person.
Ms. Khan, who rose to fame as a scholar who argued that antitrust law should not let behemoths like Amazon go unchecked, became the youngest leader of the agency since it was created more than a century earlier.
She quickly revived an F.T.C. lawsuit to break up Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, which was first filed under the Trump administration. The agency also sued Amazon, accusing it of cementing a monopoly in online retail by squeezing merchants and favoring its own services. The F.T.C. sued, unsuccessfully, to block Microsoft’s acquisition of the video game maker Activision Blizzard. And the agency is fighting to block Kroger’s $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons.
Ms. Khan’s criticism of corporate concentration across the economy generated a fierce backlash from the business community. Amazon and Meta called for her to recuse herself from investigations and lawsuits against them because of her previous criticism. Lobbying groups complained to lawmakers and in opinion pieces that she was sending a chill across the economy.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials repeated in an interview on Monday that Ms. Khan operated a “black box” on merger reviews, coming up with unpredictable theories for blocking deals.
“This is not her job,” Neil Bradley, chief policy officer for the chamber, said of Ms. Khan’s creation of business regulations. “What is really of concern is her willingness to break the norms, rules and even the legal requirements that exist on the F.T.C. to advance her agenda.”
Mr. Cuban said in an email that he hadn’t been involved in Ms. Harris’s personnel decisions, and a spokeswoman for Mr. Hoffman said he had never spoken directly with Ms. Harris about her. Mr. Diller declined to comment.
Jonathan Kanter, the head of antitrust at the Justice Department, in contrast has stayed relatively under the radar. His agency has sued Google, Apple and Ticketmaster’s owner, LiveNation, accusing them of operating as monopolies, but he hasn’t faced the same public scrutiny.
Ms. Khan has won some accolades, including from Democratic politicians and Mr. Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, who have commended her actions against Big Tech.
“Lina Khan is the best FTC Chair in modern history,” Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, wrote on X in October. “By taking on corporate greed & illegal monopolies, Lina is doing an exceptional job preventing large corporations from ripping-off consumers & exploiting workers.”
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, warned in an October post on X, “Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl.”
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