After Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral race on Tuesday night, his campaign announced former FTC chair Lina Khan as one of the transition team’s four co-chairs. Khan has been an ally of Mamdani’s, praising him in a New York Times op-ed about his outreach to small business owners. But her appointment to a formal role on his transition team sends a message to Wall Street and the tech industry, whose most powerful players have already been critical of Mamdani. He is a Democratic socialist who ruffled the feathers of the tech elite by criticizing billionaires and proposing a two percent tax on incomes over one million dollars.
In a speech on Wednesday, Khan stated that the election was not just about choosing a new mayor, but a clear rejection of a political system where corporate power and money dictate policy. She described Mamdani’s victory as a clear mandate for change where New Yorkers can get ahead and where all workers and small businesses can thrive, not just get by.
Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, along with investors Bill Ackman and Mike Bloomberg, each spent millions of dollars to oppose Mamdani and support former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who finished second in the polls. DoorDash also gave one million dollars to a pro-Cuomo super PAC. Mamdani’s platform, however, advocated for increased regulation of delivery apps and protections for their subcontracted gig workers.
Like Mamdani, Khan has enemies in high places. As an outspoken critic of tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google, she moved to block various high-profile tech mergers during her tenure in the Biden administration. When those actions failed, many in Silicon Valley still held Khan responsible for slowing down the flow of acquisition deals.
Even those who supported the Biden-Harris presidential ticket, such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and billionaire investor Vinod Khosla, were public about their criticisms of Khan. In an interview last year, Khosla described Khan as not a rational human being.
Khan, a professor at Columbia Law School, is described as the nation’s leading antimonopoly champion on Mamdani’s transition website.
In addition to Khan, the other three co-chairs include Grace Bonilla, president and CEO of the non-profit United Way of New York City; Maria Torres-Springer, the former first deputy mayor of New York City; and Melanie Hartzog, president and CEO of the non-profit New York Foundling. The four will be led by Elana Leopold, an advisor to Mamdani’s campaign who held various senior roles across the de Blasio mayoral administration.