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Who Is Lina Khan?

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Updated January 24, 2025

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FTC Chair Lina Khan — Michael M. Santiago / Staff / Getty Images

Lina Khan is the former chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Nominated by former President Joe Biden on March 22, 2021, she was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in on June 15, 2021. Her term ended on Jan. 20, 2025 (coinciding with the incoming Trump administration). Prior to her current appointment at the FTC, Khan was an associate professor at Columbia Law School.

Khan headed the FTC’s mission to promote competition and protect consumers, which includes regulating anti-competitive and 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:monopolistic practices. She also oversees the commission’s efforts to regulate corporate abuses and other behaviors that are deceptive or unfair to consumers.

She is best known for taking a strong stance on business practices by some of the country’s largest tech companies like Amazon (AMZN); Apple (AAPL); Meta (META), formerly Facebook; and Google (GOOGL).

Key Takeaways

Lina Khan was chair of the FTC, which is responsible for protecting consumer interests and market competition, and has oversight of federal antitrust investigations.
Khan’s early scholarship on the market power of Big Tech companies influenced lawmakers’ approaches to regulating digital platforms.
At 32 at the time of her confirmation, she was the youngest FTC chair in history, as well as the first person of South Asian descent to hold the position.

Antitrust Scholarship

Khan spent much of her early career researching and writing on market consolidation, at think tanks including The New America Foundation and The Open Markets Institute, and during her tenure at Columbia Law School.

In 2018, she served as a Legal Fellow at the FTC, in the office of Commissioner 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Rohit Chopra, and in 2019, she served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, conducting investigations on digital markets.

Her work on 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:antitrust topics became part of the national conversation on regulating Big Tech for exploring how, among other things, access to competitor information can create conflicts of interest for tech platforms, and how their 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:market power can harm markets and consumers.

“Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” published in 2017 while she was a law student at Yale, won awards and national acclaim for its challenge to the concept that antitrust law should focus on consumer welfare, or companies’ ability to offer goods at competitive prices, arguing that this framework failed to fully capture how some forms of market dominance impact competition.

In “The Separation of Platforms and Commerce,” a paper published in the Columbia Law Review in 2019, Khan suggested that companies with commerce platforms, acting as “gatekeepers for economic activity,” should have structural separations to avoid conflicts of interest.

Fast Fact

Khan holds an undergraduate degree from Williams College and a law degree from Yale Law School.

Tenure as FTC Chair

Lina Khan's tenure as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from June 2021 to January 2025 was marked by a proactive approach to antitrust enforcement and consumer protection. She focused on addressing anti-competitive practices across various industries, particularly targeting major technology firms. Under her leadership, the FTC challenged Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, expressing concerns that the merger would suppress competition in the gaming sector.

In the pharmaceutical sector, Khan's FTC took significant steps to address high drug prices. The agency accused leading pharmacy benefit managers, including CVS Health's Caremark, Cigna's Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth Group's Optum, of generating billions in revenue by significantly marking up drug prices for medications treating cancer, HIV, and other conditions.

Khan also championed the "right to repair" movement. In July 2021, the FTC voted unanimously to enforce policies supporting consumers' ability to repair their own devices or seek independent repair services. This move was designed to combat manufacturers' restrictions that limited repairs to authorized service providers, thereby promoting competition and consumer choice

What Is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)?

The Federal Trade Commis🍸sion (FTC) is an independent, bipartisan agency of the U.S. government. Established in 1914, its principal purpose is to enforce non-criminal antitrust laws in the United States, preventing and eliminating anticompetitive business practices, including coercive monopolies. The FTC also seeks to protect consumers from predatory or mis💞leading business practices.

Who Is the Youngest FTC Chair in History?

Th🐬e youngest FTC chair in history is Lina Khan, who was 32 at the time of her confirmation in 2021. She is also the first person of South Asian descent to hold the position.

What Was Lina Khan Known for Before Becoming FTC Chair?

Khan spent much of her early career researching and writing on market consolidation. Heಌr work on antitrust topics became part of the national conversation on regulating Big Tech for exploring how access to competitor information can create conflicts of interest for tech platforms, and how their market power can harm markets and consumers.

The Bottom Line

Lina Khan is the former FTC chair. Nominated by former President Biden on March 22, 2021, she was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in on June 15, 2021, and departed on Jan. 20, 2025. Khan was previously an associate professor at Columbia Law School.

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