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Why Musk predicts Lina Kahn will be "fired soon"

Robert Reich Nov 1

Friends,

Yesterday, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, and the richest man in the world, tweeted that Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Kahn “will be fired soon.”

Musk is hardly the only billionaire upset by Kahn’s aggressive use of antitrust law to limit the power of big corporations — and, hence, to limit the power of billionaires like Musk.

Mark Cuban, the billionaire surrogate for the Harris campaign, has also said Kahn must go. So have major Democratic donors like Reid Hoffman and Barry Diller.

When a bipartisan group of billionaires agree that a government official who’s limiting their power must be fired, you have every reason to believe she’s doing her job.

One of the biggest structural problems in the American economy is the size and power of large corporations, which have grown larger and more powerful over the last three decades. They can (and do) set or coordinate prices to keep them high. They can (and do) set or coordinate pay to keep it low. They can (and do) lose their political clout to get lower taxes, public subsidies, and regulatory rollbacks.

Antitrust law provides a means of reversing this trend and limiting the size and power of large corporations. Lina Kahn at the FTC, and Jonathan Kanter at the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, are using antitrust law as it should be used. Last year alone Biden’s regulators filed a record 50 antitrust enforcement actions; mergers reached a 10-year low.

Forty years ago, I was in charge of advising the five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission what they should do. The chairman at that time was Michael Pertschuk, who — like Kahn — aggressively used the power of the FTC on behalf of consumers and workers.

Also like Kahn, Pertschuk was targeted by big business. He was called an enemy of capitalism. But Pertschuk’s efforts helped save capitalism from its own excesses and thereby helped maintain the legitimacy of the private sector in the public’s eyes.

Of course, forty years ago corporate America didn’t have nearly the clout it has now, the super-rich weren’t nearly as wealthy, and money didn’t play nearly as great a role in American politics.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump pose the greatest threats in recent history to American capitalism. If given the authority to do what they’ve said they will do — including Trump’s giant 20 percent tariff on all goods imported into the United States, which will function as a giant regressive sales tax — Americans will not only be far worse off; they will be less inclined to support the capitalist system.

Musk’s pledge to remove Khan came after he stood on stage and said he would personally oversee a $2 trillion cut to the Federal budget — a cut that would cause, in Musk’s words, “hardship.”

Musk’s personal fortune is about a tenth of the cut he says he’ll oversee. That’s enough to shield him from its direct consequences. But most Americans depend on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government spending that would have to be cut if Musk has his way.

I have a better idea. If Musk is as concerned as he seems about getting the federal budget deficit under control, he should consider supporting a 25 percent tax on great wealth, starting with fortunes over $100 million.