Lina Khan, Start Your Engine

The FTC chair has a narrow window to make progress on her antitrust agenda

- Leah Nylen

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan finally has a chance to take her shot at Big Tech and longtime nemesis Amazon.com. It might not last long, though.

Khan’s surprise elevation to lead the FTC last summer delighted fellow progressives. Then a 32-year-old Columbia Law School professor, she was hailed for a treatise she wrote as a law student rethinking how antitrust law should apply to Amazon.com Inc. She’s argued that the commission—created in 1914 by lawmakers who wanted to bust up the railroad, meatpacking, and oil monopolies of the day—is the perfect vehicle for a complete overhaul of antitrust enforcement because it has broad authority to police business conduct and mergers. Khan, through a spokesman, declined to comment for this story.

In the year since she took over as chair, the FTC has blocked two major mergers, refiled the Trump-era antitrust suit against Meta Platforms Inc., and started revamping how the agency approaches deals. Yet her tangible accomplishments haven’t amounted to the sweeping changes progressives had envisioned.