TL;DR: Khan is a progressive antitrust hawk, not a socialist.
She is a legal scholar and antitrust expert best known for her progressive, pro-enforcement stance on competition policy—most notably through her 2017 Yale Law Journal article Amazon's Antitrust Paradox, which argued for stronger scrutiny of dominant tech platforms under existing antitrust laws.
Khan identifies politically as a progressive Democrat. She was appointed FTC Chair by President Biden (a centrist Democrat) and confirmed with bipartisan Senate support (69–28). Her policy agenda focused on:
- Breaking up concentrations of corporate power (especially in tech)
- Protecting consumers and small businesses
- Enforcing antitrust laws more aggressively
These positions align with left-leaning antitrust reform (sometimes called "New Brandeis" or "hipster antitrust"), but not socialism. Socialism typically involves public ownership of the means of production—something Khan has never advocated. She operates firmly within capitalist frameworks, seeking to make markets more competitive, not to abolish private enterprise.
The confusion sometimes arises because:
- Critics on the right label aggressive antitrust enforcement as "anti-business" or "socialist."
- Khan now co-chairs NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team—Mamdani is a democratic socialist (DSA member). But co-chairing a transition does not make Khan a socialist; transition teams include a wide range of ideological allies.
