Corporate America Really Doesn’t Like FTC Chair Lina Khan Challenging… Corporate America

Heaven forbid the top official in charge of antitrust policy has actually suggested that monopoly power is a problem.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lost a key antitrust case on July 11 after a federal judge rejected the agency’s move to halt Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of video game holding company Activision Blizzard.

FTC Chair Lina Khan has argued that, win or lose, the mere act of taking tech behemoths to court would be a partial victory by signaling the pressing need to update antitrust laws for today’s digital economy (New York Times, 12/7/22). But the Times‘ Cecilia Kang (7/11/23) wrote that the latest rulings “raise questions” about Khan’s strategy, with “critics…speaking out more loudly.” As to which critics are raising these questions, the Times buries the lead.

The three critical voices, representing a “tide of criticism,” as the Times described it, represent industry and the right. Adam Kovacevich, chief executive of Chamber of Progress (identified as “a tech trade group”), is quoted, “All these court losses are making their threats look more like a paper tiger.”