After Zohran Mamdani clinched the New York Metropolis mayoral race on Tuesday night time, his marketing campaign introduced former FTC chair Lina Khan as one of many transition workforce’s 4 co-chairs.
Khan has been an ally of Mamdani’s, praising him in a New York Occasions op-ed about his outreach to small enterprise house owners. However her appointment to a proper position on his transition workforce sends a message to Wall Avenue and the tech trade, whose strongest gamers have already been important of Mamdani, a Democratic socialist who ruffled the feathers of the tech elite by criticizing billionaires and proposing a 2% tax of incomes over $1 million.
“What we noticed final night time was New Yorkers not simply electing a brand new mayor, however clearly rejecting a politics the place outsized company energy and cash too usually find yourself dictating our politics,” Khan mentioned in a speech on Wednesday.
Khan described Mamdani’s victory as “a transparent mandate for change the place New Yorkers can get forward, and the place all employees and small companies can thrive — not simply get by.”
Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, in addition to buyers like Invoice Ackman and Mike Bloomberg, every spent hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to oppose Mamdani and advocate for former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who completed second within the polls. DoorDash additionally gave $1 million to a pro-Cuomo tremendous PAC. Mamdani’s platform, nonetheless, advocated for elevated regulation of supply apps and protections for his or her subcontracted gig employees.
Like Mamdani, Khan has enemies in excessive locations. As an outspoken critic of tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google, Khan moved to dam varied high-profile tech mergers throughout her tenure within the Biden administration. When these actions failed, many in Silicon Valley nonetheless held Khan accountable for slowing down the stream of acquisition offers.
Even those that supported the Biden-Harris presidential ticket, like LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and billionaire investor Vinod Khosla, have been public about their criticisms of Khan; in an interview with TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos final yr, Khosla described Khan as “not a rational human being.”
Khan, a professor at Columbia Regulation College, is described as “the nation’s main antimonopoly champion” on Mamdani’s transition web site.
Along with Khan, the opposite three co-chairs embrace Grace Bonilla, president and CEO of the non-profit United Approach of New York Metropolis; Maria Torres-Springer, the previous first deputy mayor of New York Metropolis; and Melanie Hartzog, president and CEO of the non-profit New York Foundling.
The 4 might be led by Elana Leopold, an advisor to Mamdani’s marketing campaign who held varied senior roles throughout the de Blasio mayoral administration.
“Lina is concentrated on getting set as much as help the transition on financial coverage and personnel,” Douglas Farrar, a spokesperson for Khan, informed TechCrunch.
Up to date, 11/5/25, 2:20 PM ET with remark from Douglas Farrar.
