A source in the Biden-Harris administration is sounding the alarm about “deeply corrupt” calls from billionaire Democratic donors for Kamala Harris to fire FTC commissioner Lina Khan if she wins the 2024 election – something the presumptive presidential nominee has yet to denounce.
Venture capitalists Reid Hoffman and Vinod Khosla, and media mogul Barry Diller, who have together donated millions of dollars to Harris’ now-principal campaign committee and associated PACs, were quick to call out Khan as a “dope” who is “waging war” on their business interests — and argue she should be sacked.
The anger at Khan comes as the FTC investigates companies in which each man has a financial interest. At least five portfolio companies in which Khosla has invested are currently facing FTC investigations, The Post has learned.
Khosla, worth an estimated $7.5 billion according to Forbes, took to X Wednesday to echo Hoffman’s comments that Khan needs to go. It’s unclear which companies are in the crosshairs, but Khan’s portfolio includes behemoths like OpenAI and DoorDash.
He had donated $413,000 to the Biden Action Fund in June before Harris’ ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket, federal campaign finance filings show.
“That is deeply corrupt to call for this and pair it with a donation,” said the Biden-Harris administration source, noting anti-trust investigations into Microsoft, where Hoffman sits on the board, and Homeadvisor which is part of Angi owned by Diller’s IAC.
“By publicly calling for her to be removed, they’ve put Kamala in an impossible situation,” the source spilled to The Post. “The idea Kamala would fire a 35-year-old, brown, progressive icon is bananas.”
Neither the Harris campaign nor Hoffman responded to a request for comment.
Diller, who donated the maximum to the Biden-Harris re-election campaign last year as well as $100,000 to their PAC, told The Post on Wednesday that he regretted his criticisms of Khan’s intelligence — but not her aggressive anti-trust litigation.
“Don’t know what was in my head during that interview — she’s anything but a dope — she’s smart!” he said. “I do disagree with her on competitive issues where I think the FTC has overreached.”
But Hoffman in an interview with CNN on Tuesday afternoon doubled down his calls for Khan’s ouster, claiming that he was “not buying levels of influence.”
“I would hope that Vice President Harris would replace her,” he told CNN anchor Jake Tapper, adding that his opinion as a “donor and expert should be kept secre– separate.”
The LinkedIn cofounder, who has given at least $7 million so far this year to the Harris-aligned Future Forward PAC, went on to say, “I don’t ever show up at the White House saying, ‘I think you should do this.’”
But in December 2023, visitor logs show Hoffman took meetings with White House aides including Rachel Chiu, who serves as a special assistant to the president and chief of staff at the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach.
The Democratic megadonor funneled $923,000 to the then-Biden Victory Fund, now Harris Victory Fund, a little more than two weeks after the West Wing sit-down.
“When I speak to these things, I speak more as a venture capitalist — I never speak as a Microsoft board member,” Hoffman went on to tell an incredulous Tapper. “I’ve never had a conversation with Kamala Harris about this.”
“There aren’t like a hundred Reid Hoffman[s],” Tapper shot back. “It’s not like one of you is a donor, and one of you has opinions on Lina Khan, and one of you is on the board of Microsoft and one of you is a venture capitalist.”
“I don’t think there’s a politician alive that’s able to compartmentalize the way you’re suggesting they should,” he emphasized, before noting: “You and other donors went after Lina Khan pretty quickly after Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 race.”
Hoffman refused to back down and even suggested that Harris “might watch our segment.” Still, he acknowledged that his support for Harris and disdain for Khan wasn’t doing the Democratic Party any favors given Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s backing of the FTC commissioner.
“Lina Khan is the person I would point out as the best person within the Biden administration,” Vance had said at Bloomberg’s “RemedyFest” tech forum in February. “I like a lot of things that Lina Khan is doing.”
The infighting between the Biden-Harris administration official and Democratic donors is revealing the party now “caters to corporate big tech interests,” one GOP operative told The Post
“There was a left-wing populist movement and they used to be anti-Wall Street and anti-big tech but they aren’t anymore,” the operative said.
“Vance thinks about antitrust; and they have a serious antitrust agenda and they’re probably more friendly to Khan,” the operative added. “They would probably want to focus on tech/media and give oil/gas a pass. But they agree that tech companies need scrutiny.”
“The issue is they’re likely to use antitrust to pursue an agenda and she wouldn’t fall in line,” the source also said. “They want someone who can continue her record who will do Trump’s bidding.”
Hoffman, sources also said, needs more friends in Washington as he and Microsoft face even more scrutiny from lawmakers.
Over the last few weeks lawmakers have weighed investigating Microsoft in response to comments he made about his wish for Trump to be an “actual martyr,” according to the Washington Reporter.
The company is also under fire following allegations they routed support calls made to Department of Defense contractors to China.
Hoffman is both trying to ingratiate himself to candidates and trying to distance himself from anything controversial — including splitting from former adviser Dmitri Mehlhorn who suggested the assassination attempt on Trump could have been “staged.”
Antitrust support has gone mainstream in recent years, with polling from YouGov showing nearly 70% of voters want antitrust action.
The FTC declined to comment.