Connect with us

Tech

FTC’s Lina Khan isn’t letting up on Big Tech even with her future in doubt

Published

2 weeks ago

on

FTC’s Lina Khan isn’t letting up on Big Tech even with her future in doubt

Lina Khan’s time may be running out as boss of the Federal Trade Commission, but she is not going quietly.

The FTC chairwoman recently signed off on a request to Microsoft (MSFT) that is hundreds of pages long and demands information connected with a long-running antitrust investigation of the tech giant, according to Bloomberg.

The investigation is wide-ranging and touches everything from cloud computing to artificial intelligence, according to Bloomberg. Microsoft is a dominant cloud provider and has invested nearly $14 billion in the AI startup OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT.

FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan, testifying in May. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) · Tom Williams via Getty Images

Khan, since being appointed by President Joe Biden in 2021, has aggressively pursued lawsuits and investigations targeting a number of the biggest tech giants. But this most recent escalation comes just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump is set to retake the Oval Office in January.

Khan is not the only US regulator turning up the dial in the final stretch of Biden’s term.

Another is Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which on Friday claimed it had supervision authority over Google’s payment platform Google Payment Corp.

That resulted in an immediate lawsuit from Google parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL).

The company sued CFPB and Chopra, who is expected to leave once the Trump administration takes power, saying that CFPB’s action “suffers from numerous legal defects.”

Billionaire Elon Musk, a key adviser to the incoming Trump administration, has called for the CFPB to be eliminated. It has sued and fined a number of financial tech firms and other startups it accused of deceiving customers.

U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra testifies before a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on
U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) director Rohit Chopra, testifying in 2023. REUTERS/Leah Millis · REUTERS / Reuters

What may be telling in these late actions from FTC and CFPB is that they both target Big Tech companies, an area where the Biden administration may have some alignment with Trump 2.0.

Trump is making it clear he doesn’t intend to ease up on the nation’s technology giants once he is back in the Oval Office.

The latest sign came last week when he said he would nominate Gail Slater, an aide to Vice President-elect JD Vance, to lead the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Vance has expressed admiration for Khan’s aggressive approach.

“Big Tech has run wild for years,” Trump said in a statement announcing the Slater appointment on his Truth Social platform, “stifling competition in our most innovative sector and, as we all know, using its market power to crack down on the rights of so many Americans, as well as those of Little Tech!”

“I was proud to fight these abuses in my First Term, and our Department of Justice’s antitrust team will continue that work under Gail’s leadership,” he added.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading