Lina Khan Height, Age, Husband, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Lina Khan

• Lina Khan grew up in Golders Green in the London Borough of Barnet.

• One of her parents worked in management consulting, and another at Thomson Reuters.

• When she was eleven years old, her family moved to the United States in 2000. They settled in Mamaroneck, New York, where she, along with her two siblings, completed their schooling.

• At Williams College, Lina Khan served as the editor of a student newspaper. During this period, she wrote her senior thesis on Hannah Arendt.

• In 2010, she started working at the New America Foundation and served there till 2014.

• During this period, she did anti-monopoly research and worked as a writer for Barry Lynn at the Open Markets Program.

• Lynn hired her as a researcher because she lacked an economics background. He started criticising market consolidation with her help.

• After getting experience at the Open Markets Institute, Lina Khan was offered a job at The Wall Street Journal to cover commodities.

• During the same time, she was accepted to Yale Law School.

• She once described it as difficult to choose, and so she decided to attend Yale.

• During her studies at Yale Law School, Lina Khan was chosen as an editor for the Yale Journal on Regulation.

• In 2014, she co-authored a book titled Market Structure and Political Law: A Taxonomy of Power. She then went on to publish various books, such as Arbitration as Wealth Transfer (2017), A Skeptical View of Information Fiduciaries (2019), and The Case for ‘Unfair Methods of Competition’ Rulemaking (2020).

• In 2017, she completed her Juris Doctor degree from Yale.

  

  Lina Khan posing at a library

• During her final year at Yale Law School, the Yale Law Journal published her student article, ‘Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,’ which made a significant impact on the law and business areas in America.

• The New York Times called the article “reframing decades of monopoly law.”

• Lina Khan stated that the U.S. antitrust law, which focuses on keeping prices low for customers, did not work well for online platform businesses like Amazon.

• The article’s title refers to a 1978 book titled The Antitrust Paradox by Robert Bork. The book set a price-focused standard that Khan challenged.

• She suggested various ways to reform antitrust laws, such as bringing back old antitrust rules or treating large online platforms like public utilities with special responsibilities.

• The article received both praise and criticism.

• By September 2018, it had 146,255 views. The New York Times called it ‘a runaway best-seller in the world of legal treatises.’

• Makan Delrahim, former Assistant Attorney General, praised Lina Khan for her new ideas on applying laws to digital platforms.

• Joshua Wright, a former FTC member, criticised her work as ‘hipster antitrust’ and said that it showed she did not understand the consumer welfare model properly.

• In 2018, she worked as a legal fellow at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in Commissioner Rohit Chopra’s office.

• In 2019, she started working as counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law.

• In that role, she led a congressional investigation into major digital markets and companies.

• In July 2020, Lina Khan started working as an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School.

• She is associated with the New Brandeis movement, which supports stronger action against monopolies through antitrust laws.

• On 22 March 2021, American President Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Khan to be a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It was stated that the term would end on 26 September 2024.

  

  Lina Khan while giving a pen to Joe Biden

• On 15 June 2021, the U.S. Senate approved her nomination, with 69 votes in favour and 28 against.

• Both Democrats and Republicans supported her appointment because many in Congress agreed with her strong criticism of Amazon’s market power.

• After her confirmation, President Biden chose her to be the chairperson of the FTC.

• When she took office, Lina Khan became the third Asian American to serve on the FTC after Dennis Yao, who served from 1991 to 1994, and Rohit Chopra, who served from 2018 to 2021.

  

  Lina Khan during her tenure as the chairman of Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

• After she became the chairperson of the FTC, Amazon and Meta Platforms requested that the agency remove her from their investigations.

• They claimed that her earlier criticism of both companies showed that she could not act fairly.

• Legal expert Eleanor Fox said that the rule for recusal was strict and that Khan’s situation did not meet that requirement.

• Senator Elizabeth Warren and others supporting Khan stated that these companies were trying to pressure her and stop her from investigating them.

• Leaked documents revealed that the FTC’s ethics officer, Lorielle Pankey, found no evidence that Khan broke any ethics rules. However, Pankey suggested that Khan should step away from the Meta case to avoid the appearance of bias.

• After that, Lina Khan and the FTC decided not to follow that suggestion and continued with her involvement in the case.

• The official who advised Khan to step away from the Meta case was later found to have owned Meta shares at that time, which raised questions about her own actions.

• In response to this issue, she and the FTC jointly stated support for Lorielle Pankey, the official.

• In the first two years of Lina Khan’s tenure as FTC chairman, according to employee surveys, staff satisfaction and trust in agency leaders had declined.​

• Before her, the FTC usually ranked at the top for workplace satisfaction under both Democratic and Republican leaders.​

• In 2020, 94.3% of staff gave positive ratings to senior leadership. These figures dropped to 51.7% in 2021 and 46.6% in 2022.​

• After she entered the agency, the FTC, which earned the most positive views in senior leadership, started receiving the most negative views among federal agencies.​

• Some agency officials stated that morale fell because staff felt there was no clear plan, a lack of operational knowledge, and many employees felt disrespected and left.​

• Lina Khan took an early decision to ban public speaking for FTC staff, which most employees disliked; however, the rule was cancelled in 2022, and Khan apologised.​

• She then stated in the media that raising staff morale was her major goal after the survey results.​

• She has spoken about the dangers of large monopolies and has pushed for stronger antitrust laws and their enforcement.

• Lina Khan stated that only about 2 per cent of merger filings get extra review under these rules.

• In 2021, under her leadership, the FTC voted to support the ‘right to repair’ policy and to act against companies that restrict repairs by independent shops.

• The FTC also filed cases against companies to reduce the prices of drugs, such as insulin and inhalers.

• In February 2023, Republican FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson announced her intention to resign. She criticised Khan’s leadership and her decision not to recuse herself from the Meta lawsuit.

• In July 2023, Lina Khan testified before the House Judiciary Committee, where Republicans questioned her leadership of the FTC.

• The Democrats defended her, saying that her actions helped protect user privacy.

• Republican Ken Buck praised Khan for her actions and criticised some members of Congress for engaging in insider trading. He pointed out that it was unfair to push back on Khan just because she wrote a law review article.

• Republican Matt Gaetz also supported Khan and raised concerns about the Ring Doorbell company. He asked her to keep investigating them.

• Gaetz highlighted that Kochava was selling personal data and urged Khan to continue investigating this issue and inform Congress about any new laws that may be needed.

  

  Lina Khan with Matt Gaetz

• Lina Khan then became known for her strong and bold style as FTC chairperson. She used new ideas and unusual cases for regulation, even though this sometimes led to more court losses.

• She and the FTC said that their stronger actions made companies think twice, causing some to stop planned mergers and acquisitions.

• For example, Lockheed Martin abandoned its attempt to acquire Aerojet, and Sanofi abandoned its plan to acquire Maze Therapeutics after the FTC review.

• Lina Khan and her supporters see these cancelled deals as wins, even though they occurred outside of court decisions.

• Some House Republicans claimed that Khan intentionally brought weak cases so that Congress could be pressured into giving more power to the FTC.

• In a 2023 hearing, she stated that she did not bring cases that she expected to lose but admitted that her rigid approach carried some risks.

  

  Lina Khan during one of the court hearings

• In 2023, employee satisfaction in FTC began to improve. It regained more than half of the earlier drop in morale.

• During the same year, the FTC faced mixed results in court when challenging mergers and acquisitions during Khan’s tenure.

• It lost several major cases, including the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard and Meta-Within mergers.

• In December 2023, the FTC secured its first major victory by stopping Illumina from buying Grail after a 3-year legal fight.

• In 2024, under Lina Khan’s leadership, the FTC introduced the ‘click to cancel’ rule, making it easier for people to cancel subscription services.

• That same year, the FTC won two more big cases, blocking Tapestry’s plan to buy Capri in November and Kroger’s plan to buy Albertsons in December.

• She received bipartisan support, including praise from Republican J. D. Vance and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon in 2024.

• In 2025, Lina Khan was replaced by Andrew N. Ferguson as FTC chairman.

• After that, Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election, and Khan was named co-chairman of his mayoral team.

  

  Lina Khan while delivering a speech, and Zohran Mamdani (standing left)

• She is recognised as a leading thinker in antitrust law. She is noted for her strong viewpoints against monopolies and her influence across political lines.

• Some Democrats and Republicans praised her aggressive approach against big tech. Her tenure at FTC faced criticism, including many critical articles in The Wall Street Journal.

• During her tenure, the FTC faced staff morale issues and some lawsuits against major tech companies also failed, resulting in internal challenges.

• However, members from both parties, including J. D. Vance and David Cicilline, praised her efforts and believed in her ultimate success.

• Once, during a media conversation, her former colleague Matt Stoller called her the best FTC chairman ever.

• She likes travelling to distant places and photography in her free time.