Former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, has openly praised the work of Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan, suggesting that the commission’s broad approach to antitrust enforcement may find some level of support from a second Trump administration.
Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, joined the presidential candidates at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, when Trump officially became the party’s nominee.
Vance is one of a group of Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, known as the “Khan Servatius,” because they share the FTC chairman’s view that U.S. antitrust law has a broader purpose than keeping prices down for consumers.
“She recognized that we needed a broader understanding of how we think about competition in the marketplace,” Vance said at an event in Washington in February.
The comments reflect tensions in the conservative movement between the urge to shrink regulatory agencies and a willingness to use antitrust law to take on big tech companies, particularly among some who want to fight censorship of conservatives online.
Joseph Coniglio, antitrust policy director at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said Vance is among the latter.
“I think the selection of Senator Vance as vice president certainly sends a signal in one direction,” said Coniglio, whose think tank is funded by several major tech companies.
Oversight of big tech companies is not an unusual move for Trump: Under his administration, the FTC and Department of Justice launched antitrust investigations into Meta, Amazon, Apple and Google, all of which ultimately faced lawsuits and denied any wrongdoing.
Vance, a Yale-educated lawyer and venture capitalist who worked at the corporate law firm Sidley Austin and helped Trump raise funds in Silicon Valley, has also called for breaking up one of the valley’s largest companies.
“It’s long overdue but time to break up Google,” Vance tweeted in February, lamenting the “monopoly control of information in our society exercised by arguably progressive tech companies.”
It remains to be seen how the Trump administration will focus its second term. Project 2025, a policy platform from the conservative Heritage Foundation, discusses ways for antitrust enforcement agencies to champion conservative causes, but also questions whether the FTC should continue to exist.
Business groups have criticized Biden’s antitrust enforcement authorities for focusing on labor and other issues beyond traditional considerations of how competition affects prices.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed suit to block the FTC’s recent ban on requiring employers to require employees to sign agreements not to join a rival company or start a competing business.
Speaking at an event hosted by Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley startup incubator, in February, Vance said his views on antitrust law extend beyond helping small businesses compete to the quality of workers and consumer goods.
He disagreed with the view held by some conservatives that corporate actions should not be “tyrannical.”
“I want people to have a good life in our country,” he said, “and whether the institutions that most threaten that vision are private or public makes little difference to me.”
