Sanders: Mark Cuban wrong to call for Lina Khan to be replaced

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) publicly disagreed with Mark Cuban after he called for Federal Trade Commissioner (FTC) Chair Lina Khan to be replaced if Vice President Harris is elected president.

In a post on the social platform X, Sanders said Cuban “is wrong” when he called for a new FTC chair.

“Lina Khan is the best FTC Chair in modern history,” Sanders wrote. “By taking on corporate greed & illegal monopolies, Lina is doing an exceptional job preventing large corporations from ripping-off consumers & exploiting workers.”

Sanders thanked Khan for her work. His comments follow Cuban’s remarks to Semafor earlier this week.

“If it were me, I wouldn’t,” Cuban said of keeping Khan at a KFF event. “By trying to break up the biggest tech companies, you risk our ability to be the best in artificial intelligence.”

Cuban, a billionaire and former principal owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and other big names in business joined Harris’s campaign for the launch of “Business Leaders for Harris.”

The group released testimonials last week to make the case for Harris. Cuban is an outspoken critic of former President Trump.

Khan has come under criticism from a number of voices.

Some big Democratic donors are calling on the vice president to replace Khan, who has led the Biden administration’s antitrust agenda.

However, some of Harris’s other backers have praised Khan. At a San Francisco, tech-based fundraiser last weekend, dubbed “Little Tech for Harris,” executives applauded Khan’s efforts to break up big tech companies.

Sanders, a progressive, has been supportive of the Biden administration’s antitrust efforts to increase market competition.