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Major Democratic donors on Wall Street are increasingly pushing Kamala Harris\u2019 team to replace top regulators Lina Khan and Gary Gensler if the vice president wins in November.<\/p>\n
On calls with her staff and at fundraisers, deep-pocketed donors have repeatedly named Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, as impeding the technology sector and other lucrative parts of the economy, according to people familiar with the matter. The private conversations about having her replaced have intensified since public calls for her ouster in July from Barry Diller, chairman of IAC<\/a> Inc., and LinkedIn<\/a> Corp. co-founder Reid Hoffman, who\u00a0said\u00a0<\/a>Khan was \u201cwaging war on American business.\u201d<\/p>\n Khan, 35, was appointed by President Biden in 2021 and is a favorite of progressive Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, who called her appointment\u00a0\u201ctremendous news.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Her time at the FTC has frustrated dealmakers from San Francisco to New York, who have experienced a relative drought of activity in recent years.<\/p>\n Democratic donors on Wall Street will likely keep lobbying in private for Khan to be replaced, some of the people said. However, it\u2019s unlikely any of them are withholding contributions based on her fate at the FTC, and no clear communication has been given to donors about Harris\u2019 position on Khan, they stressed.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Gensler, whose term as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission is up in 2026, is disliked privately by both Democratic and Republican donors, some of the people said. Gensler has pushed for tougher regulations, but donors have particularly bristled at what they perceive as him talking down to Wall Street, the people said.<\/p>\n Billionaire Mark Cuban, a supporter of Harris, told CNBC this week that the SEC \u201cneeds to change\u201d and that he\u2019s asked the vice president\u2019s team to \u201cput my name in for the SEC.\u201d Donald Trump pledged at a crypto conference that if elected he would fire Gensler.<\/p>\n The Harris campaign didn\u2019t provide a comment for this story.\u00a0<\/p>\n Douglas Farrar, an FTC spokesman, declined to comment. A spokesperson for Gensler said in an emailed statement that the SEC\u2019s projects \u201care making our capital markets more efficient, transparent and resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n For Harris, who\u2019s trying to walk a fine line between attracting donors and appealing to the party\u2019s progressive wing, the pressure to remove Khan and Gensler puts her in a tricky position. While she\u2019s long represented Silicon Valley as senator for California and is well-versed in antitrust debates, Harris has also sought to appeal to Americans irritated by price-gouging, big corporations and Wall Street.<\/p>\n Antitrust lawsuits filed by the FTC under Khan\u2019s leadership have sought to block Microsoft<\/a> Corp. from buying video-game publisher Activision Blizzard<\/a> Inc. and aimed to halt the $25 billion grocery-store merger of Kroger<\/a> Co. and Albertsons<\/a> Cos. So far, the FTC has a mixed record in stopping deals, having lost two early cases, but has had more success in recent lawsuits.<\/p>\n Two donors close to Harris\u2019 campaign said the argument being presented against Khan is that the FTC\u2019s efforts to hold up mergers are hurting the economy. The idea is that if Harris wants to\u00a0project herself<\/a>\u00a0as pro-growth and pro-business \u2014 as she and surrogates have sought to do \u2014 Khan will need to be replaced, the people said.<\/p>\n Members of the FTC can only be fired in cases of \u201cinefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,\u201d according to\u00a0federal law<\/a>, though the president can designate another commissioner as chair. While Khan\u2019s term expires in September, she can remain in office until the Senate confirms a replacement. That would allow Harris to select a new FTC chair if she wins, though it can take a year or more for a nominee to make it through the confirmation process.<\/p>\n As for Gensler, much of the frustration on both sides of the aisle stems from the SEC\u2019s efforts to crack down on the digital asset industry, which Gensler has described as flagrantly violating securities laws.<\/p>\n Both regulators came into their positions with \u201ca fairly aggressive regulatory agenda and have taken some big steps to try to carry that out,\u201d said Jill Fisch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. \u201cThey weren\u2019t looking to play it safe. They weren\u2019t looking to compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a challenge to deal with differing views on regulation running through the Democratic party, Fisch said. Historically, the FTC and SEC were close to the industries they oversaw and were intended to be walled off from their policy being overly driven by politics, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now it\u2019s no longer what\u2019s most sensible to do from a market and industry perspective, but what\u2019s politically salient, and what\u2019s going to please political leaders\u2014and that\u2019s a very tough path to navigate,\u201d Fisch said.<\/p>\n Hoffman, who has donated $10 million to the Harris campaign, appeared to walk back his remarks about Khan in a follow-up interview, saying he hasn\u2019t spoken to the vice president about his concerns and seeking to distinguish between his role as a donor and an expert on the tech industry.<\/p>\n Diller also said in a July CNBC interview that he would urge Harris to drop Khan, before also reining in his comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hoffman and Diller are worth $5.1 billion and $5.4 billion, respectively, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Both are also affiliated with companies facing FTC scrutiny.<\/p>\n Hoffman declined to comment for this story. An IAC representative didn\u2019t reply to an emailed request for comment.<\/p>\n Many donors have privately expressed frustration at the duo\u2019s public remarks against Khan, calling them counterproductive and making it more challenging for a potential Harris administration to make changes at the FTC without seeming beholden to billionaires\u2019 money, according to some of the people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nTricky Position<\/h2>\n
No Compromise<\/h2>\n
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