The New Yorker - USA (2021-12-06)

(Antfer) #1

56 THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER6, 2021


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 more

business­friendly. 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

• •

Free download pdf