The Youngest Ever FTC Chair Is Leaving. What Will Happen to Her Big Tech Probes?

Lina Khan, the 35-year-old chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, is the youngest person ever to hold this position. Known for her efforts to modernize antitrust enforcement, Khan has led multiple antitrust probes into Big Tech companies like Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon, Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META). She pioneers the idea that substantial investments, such as Microsoft’s $14 billion partnership with OpenAI, can serve as a strategy for companies to achieve market monopoly just like conventional acquisitions. But with just a few weeks left in her tenure under the Biden administration, the future of several Big Tech antitrust cases is now hanging in the air.

President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he will replace Khan with Andrew Ferguson, an FTC commissioner currently working under Khan. Although Ferguson has disagreed with Khan on policy decisions, including her ban of non-compete clauses, he seems to share her general view of Big Tech’s dominance. “We will end Big Tech’s vendetta against competition and free speech,” Ferguson wrote in an X post yesterday (Dec. 10) following Trump’s announcement.

An FTC probe does not constitute an official lawsuit against a company. Even if a probe escalates to a suit, it can take months, if not years, before it moves to trial. And at any point, the new FTC chair can pull the plug.

The FTC shares antitrust enforcement responsibilities with the Department of Justice. The two agencies often coordinate to avoid overlap in their investigations. For example, in June, the FTC and the DOJ divided oversight of A.I., with the FTC handling Microsoft and OpenAI and the DOJ focusing on Nvidia.

With the clock ticking, Khan must convince federal judges and the new president that the FTC’s investigations into America’s largest companies are both worthwhile and beneficial to American consumers.

Here’s where these cases currently stand:

Microsoft is under a broad fact-finding probe

On Nov. 27, the FTC launched a broad investigation into Microsoft, requesting information about the company’s cloud computing business, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity offerings and everything in between. The renewed interest in Microsoft likely came after the CrowdStrike crash on Microsoft Windows systems earlier this year, which highlighted global dependence on just a few highly concentrated tech companies. Part of the FTC’s latest investigation focuses on Microsoft’s security software, Entra ID. 

The FTC’s attempt to reel Microsoft in has not been successful thus far. Last year, the federal agency failed an attempt to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of the video game maker Activision Blizzard (ATVI).

In April, Observer reported potential conflicts of interest some members on Microsoft’s senior leadership team may have with competitors. For example, Disney CFO Hugh Johnston sits on Microsoft’s board, despite Disney’s gaming business competing directly with Activision Blizzard. Microsoft’s president Brad Smith serves on the board of Netflix, whose A.I. and gaming business competes with Microsoft. Microsoft’s board also includes Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf, who chose to partner with Microsoft’s competitor Google (GOOGL) to create an A.I. banking assistance called Fargo. Such corporate board overlap has been a point of scrutiny for both the FTC and the DOJ.

Alphabet faces scrutiny over its Anthropic investment and possible breakup

In January, the FTC launched an inquiry into Alphabet for information about its investments in A.I. startups. The agency specifically cited Google’s announcement about a $2 billion investment into Anthropic, a high-flying A.I. startup founded by former OpenAI executives. “Our study will shed light on whether investments and partnerships pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and undermining fair competition,” Khan said in a statement.

In August, the DOJ won a suit targeting Google’s online search business. A federal judge ruled that, because Google has almost no competitors in text-based online search, the company was able to surge the pricing of ads on Google Search “without any meaningful competitive constraint.”

Now, the DOJ is pushing for Google to sell Chrome, the most popular web browser in the world. If approved (which analysts find unlikely) it would be the first major breakup of a tech company since AT&T’s breakup in 1982.

Amazon is set for an antitrust trial in 2026

In September 2023, the FTC and 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon for allegedly maintaining a monopoly in online retail. The FTC claims Amazon dominates over 60 percent of the market for online superstores. Key issues included Amazon’s “Buy Box” feature, which prioritizes sellers who offer competitive prices and penalizes those with lower prices on rival platforms. The FTC also accused Amazon of pressuring sellers into using its fulfillment services for better marketplace visibility.

A year later, Amazon won a partial dismissal of some of the FTC’s claims. But a federal judge allowed the FTC to continue pursuing other claims. Because the partial dismissal decision was sealed, it is not publicly known which claims were dropped and which would be prosecuted. The antitrust suit is set for trial in October 2026.

Amazon is also being investigated for its multi-billion dollar investments into Anthropic as part of the same FTC inquiry into Alphabet.

Meta is set for antitrust trial in four months

In December 2020, the FTC and 48 attorney generals sued Meta for violating antitrust laws following a lengthy investigation into its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. The suit was originally dismissed in June 2021 for lacking evidence. Khan, who took the helm of the FTC the same month, rebuilt the case and submitted an amended complaint to the court in August 2021. Last month, a federal judge ruled that the suit could go to trial, marking a win for Khan. The trial is tentatively set for April 2025.

The case will likely move into its next phase under a new FTC chair, especially because the original lawsuit was brought on by the Republican-appointed FTC chair Joseph Simons, insulating the case from partisanship.