Lina Khan’s controversial tenure as Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) chair appears at an finish with President-elect Trump’s win final week, eradicating an enormous “thorn” within the facet of enormous tech corporations that confronted further scrutiny beneath her management.
Nonetheless, specialists cautioned that Huge Tech just isn’t within the clear beneath a second Trump presidency, notably with a populist bent that would maintain antitrust enforcement on the forefront.
“Trump is a populist, and he’s a populist in every sense of the word, including antitrust policy,” Matthew Cantor, an antitrust lawyer with Shinder Cantor Lerner, advised The Hill.
“I think that there will be a continued push on antitrust issues — maybe not a Lina Khan-like pushing of the envelope — but there will be a continued priority placed on antitrust enforcement,” he added.
Khan has led the Biden administration’s aggressive antitrust push, blocking what she views as anticompetitive mergers and suing company giants for alleged anticompetitive practices.
Her insurance policies have typically drawn the ire of the enterprise group, even making her flashpoint amongst Democrats.
After Vice President Harris stepped into the White Home race in July, a number of main Democratic donors, together with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and IAC chairman Barry Diller, urged her to take away Khan if elected.
The warmth on the FTC chair prompted her progressive supporters, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), to leap to her protection. Ocasio-Cortez promised an “out and out brawl” if “anyone goes near Lina Khan” final month.
As components of the Republican Celebration more and more embrace populism, Khan’s extra forceful strategy to antitrust enforcement has been welcomed by some from the opposite facet of the aisle.
Vice President-elect Vance touted the FTC chair’s document in February, saying that she was doing a “pretty good job.”
“A lot of my Republican colleagues look at Lina Khan … and they say, well Lina Khan is sort of engaged in some sort of fundamental evil thing. And I guess I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job,” the Ohio Republican stated at a Bloomberg discussion board.
Regardless of Vance’s reward for Khan, she appears unlikely to stay on in a second Trump administration. Conservative assist for the FTC chair has its limits, stated Owen Tedford, a senior analysis analyst at Beacon Coverage Advisors.
“I think that there’s some appreciation for what she’s done to try and reign in Big Tech, but I think that’s kind of where the love stops,” Tedford advised The Hill.
“Even if you end up with a more aggressive nominee at the FTC and or the [Department of Justice] than maybe a traditional Republican administration, it’s still not going to be a Lina Khan in Republican’s clothing. It’s going to be a step back from that,” he added.
Nonetheless, sure sectors, together with tech and prescription drugs, will doubtless stay high targets for antitrust enforcement beneath Trump, Tedford stated.
Huge Tech was already going through scrutiny through the president-elect’s first time period in workplace. In 2020, the DOJ sued Google for allegedly monopolizing on-line search, whereas the FTC sued Fb for allegedly sustaining an unlawful monopoly over social networking.
Below President Biden, the DOJ adopted up with a second antitrust lawsuit towards Google over its function within the promoting expertise market. It later sued Apple for allegedly monopolizing the smartphone market.
The FTC additionally sued Amazon through the Biden administration, accusing the e-commerce large of partaking in anticompetitive practices to keep up a monopoly within the on-line retail house.
The DOJ secured a big win within the Google search case in August, when a federal decide dominated that the tech large had a monopoly over on-line search that it had illegally maintained via a collection of unique agreements.
Whereas Huge Tech will doubtless proceed to face scrutiny beneath Trump, his administration might not take such a “harsh” strategy to cures in these antitrust circumstances, Tedford steered.
“I think that there still would be a belief from Trump regulators that they want to win something out of these cases, but I don’t think that will necessarily be as structural or maybe as harsh as it would have been under a Harris administration,” he stated.
The DOJ revealed in a submitting final month that it’s contemplating asking the decide to interrupt off Google’s search enterprise from different components of the corporate. When requested in regards to the potential breakup final month, Trump appeared skeptical.
“It’s a very dangerous thing because we want to have great companies,” he stated throughout an interview with Bloomberg. “We don’t want China to have these companies. Right now, China is afraid of Google.”
The shift to a Republican administration can be prone to take away some headwinds on dealmaking within the tech house.
In an business observe final week, Wedbush Securities analysts steered that Khan’s doubtless exit and a “dramatically reduced regulatory framework” in a Trump administration might open the door to extra mergers within the business.
“This Khan nightmare period for the tech world has put a lid on tech deal flow and we believe this all changes starting today with Trump in the White House and a much more business friendly regulatory environment,” they wrote the day after the election.
Cantor equally stated he expects a “slew of deals” over the subsequent 4 years, pointing to falling rates of interest and the idea {that a} Trump administration will extra lenient than the Biden administration.
“There were mergers and transactions that sort of held back during the Biden administration because the Biden administration was the most aggressive antitrust enforcer, at least in my lifetime,” he stated.
Nonetheless, on the general antitrust setting, Cantor added, “I don’t think the tech companies should be jumping up for joy.”
A number of leaders within the tech house made overtures to the president-elect within the closing weeks of the race in obvious anticipation of a second Trump presidency.
Trump revealed final month that Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner and Google CEO Sundar Pichai had each referred to as him, whereas CNN reported that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had additionally reached out to the Republican candidate.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg additionally tried to extricate himself from politics in latest months, incomes him some reward from Trump after years of assaults.
Others, like Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, have totally embraced the president-elect. Musk contributed tens of millions of {dollars} to his personal pro-Trump tremendous PAC and amplified Trump’s message together with his large platform on X.
