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companies in question were already
“titans in our economy.” Since then,
they had grown even more powerful,
while locally owned businesses faced
an economic crisis. “Open markets are
predicated on the idea that, if a com
pany harms people, consumers, work
ers, and business partners will choose
another option. That choice is no lon
ger possible,” he said. “Concentrated
economic power leads to concentrated
political power. This investigation goes
to the heart of whether we as a peo
ple govern ourselves, or let ourselves
be governed by private monopolies.”
Khan sat beside him, in a pastel blazer
and a mask.
The C.E.O.s appeared remotely. All
four made opening statements high
lighting their entrepreneurial back
stories, emphasizing the millions of
new jobs their companies had created.
The hearing lasted for six hours. Re
publicans also asked aggressive ques
tions, typically focussed on social media
bias and other concerns of Trump and
his supporters; at one point, Sensen
brenner asked Zuckerberg why the ac
count of Donald Trump, Jr., “was taken
down for a period of time,” and Zucker
berg politely responded that “what you
might be referring to happened on
Twitter.” Representative Jim Jordan, of
Ohio, accused the companies of being
“out to get conservatives,” while Matt
Gaetz, from Florida, wondered if they
embraced American values and accused
Alphabet of supporting the Chinese
military, which Pichai denied.
Stoller said that, these distractions
aside, the tenor of the exchanges re
minded him of the 1994 tobacco hear
ings, when Representative Henry A.
Waxman summoned seven Big To
bacco company C.E.O.s to interrogate
them about whether nicotine was ad
dictive. “I would describe it as a time
machine,” Stoller told me. “Congress
used to do these hearings on corporate
power all the time. There’d be a lot of
investigation and real work.”
As the subcommittee prepared to
release a final report, the Republican
members split off and published their
own reports, which included recom
mendations that they said were morebusinessfriendly. On October 6th, the
Democratic members published their
version. “To put it simply, companies
that once were scrappy, underdog start
ups that challenged the status quo have
become the kinds of monopolies we
last saw in the era of oil barons and
railroad tycoons,” the introduction read.
“Although these firms have delivered
clear benefits to society, the dominance
of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Goo
gle has come at a price.”
The report was more than four hun
dred pages, and included some of the
most damning evidence the subcom
mittee had gathered. In reviewing the
report for ProMarket, a publication
of the University of Chicago’s Booth
School of Business, the legal scholar
Shaoul Sussman wrote, “Upon careful
reading, it becomes abundantly clear
just how much this strong, unapolo
getic call for Congressional action owes
to the sagacious intellectual finger
prints of Lina Khan.”K
han returned to Columbia Law
School, where she began teaching
a seminar about the history of anti
monopoly law and policy. A few weeks
later, Joe Biden was elected President,
and lobbyists, activists, and donors
started pushing candidates for posi
tions in the incoming government. The
two most important jobs in antitrust
are the chair of the F.T.C. and the head
of the antitrust division at the Depart
ment of Justice. Warren, among oth
ers, made it known to Biden and those
around him, including his chief of staff,
Ron Klain, that Khan should be con
sidered for the F.T.C.
Most of the names mentioned in
the press, however, were longtime cor
porate lawyers who had cycled in and
out of government. Karen Dunn, a
partner at Paul, Weiss who had served
as White House counsel under Obama,
and as a senior adviser and commu
nications director to Senator Hillary
Clinton, was rumored to be under
consideration for a position in the Jus
tice Department. Dunn had repre
sented Uber and Apple, and advised
Bezos during his antitrust subcom
mittee hearing. Renata Hesse, a Sul
livan & Cromwell partner and former
Obama Justice Department official
who had worked for Google and ad