No impact – Agency reforms are durable.

The federal government has “innumerable tools” to promote competition, Jon Donenberg, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, told the Guardian. “But what we have seen in recent generations is a real crawl-back from that forward-leaning perspective.”

Americans expect the government to “set the rules of the road for market capitalism to work effectively”, Donenberg continued. “The president has been very clear that competition promotion is critical across every sector of the economy.”

Those leading the FTC since 2021 have tried to confine its former playbook to history. Attention is now shifting to the future.

Key figures in Khan’s orbit are confident the US government’s modified approach to antitrust enforcement is here to stay – regardless of who comes to sit in the White House, or chair the FTC, in future years.

The previous orthodoxy has been shattered, according to Lynn, her former boss. “There’s something the other side can never put back together again,” he suggested, the belief “that we had developed a scientific understanding of competition, that there were natural processes at work here, that scientists could study and teach us how to regulate.”

Even so, with a presidential election looming, the FTC case most closely associated with Khan – its lawsuit against Amazon, filed in September, accusing the group of using anti-competitive and unfair strategies to maintain monopoly power – may well come to a head under a different leader. A trial has been set for October 2026.

“If you look at the history of America, it’s been a history of a struggle between monopolies and democracy,” said David Cicilline, a former Democratic congressman who chaired the House Judiciary committee’s antitrust panel.

Economic and political power so often go hand in hand, added Cicilline, who worked with Khan on the subcommittee’s investigation into big tech in 2019 and 2020, “so this is a battle for the country”.

Khan smiled when asked last month what a second Trump presidency would mean. “We obviously don’t know what’s going to happen in November,” she told the DCN: Next Summit. “But I think as a general matter, one of the most fascinating aspects of the anti-monopoly work is that there is strong bipartisan concern here.”

There is concern, Khan observed, on both sides of the aisle. “No matter who wins in November,” she believes “the commitment to strong, robust anti-monopoly work will last beyond my time at the agency.”

Khan “knows what she’s up against”, said Cicilline. “She’s going to prevail. She’s making the case. There’s no going back.”