New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday appointed Lina Khan, the former chair of the Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden, to serve as board chair of the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
Mamdani also nominated Tony Shorris to serve as president and CEO of the EDC, which serves as the city’s economic development arm. Shorris was the city’s first deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio and has decades of civil service experience.
“Frankly, this feels like the economic wonk’s version of the 1992 Olympic basketball Dream Team,” Mamdani said at a press conference. “It brings me great pleasure to say that today’s appointees not only share a vision for the future of this office, but a commitment to executing on it.”
The mayor added that he is looking forward to partnering with Khan and Shorris “every step of the way.”
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Khan advised Mamdani on economic policy and claimed to have found dormant mayoral powers to lower costs for New Yorkers as one of the four co-chairs of Mamdani’s transition team.
In her remarks Wednesday, Khan echoed Mamdani’s emphasis on affordability and committed herself to using the position for the benefit of all the city’s residents.
“EDC has enormous capacity to make life materially better for New Yorkers, and to ensure that public resources are being used to build state capacity,” she said.
Mamdani’s predecessor as mayor, Eric Adams, was indicted on federal corruption charges for allegedly accepting campaign money and travel benefits from individuals connected to the Turkish government. The Justice Department eventually dismissed the case, but Adams lost his reelection bid after facing scrutiny over the allegations on the campaign trail.
Mamdani signaled in his inaugural address that rooting out bad business practices in the city’s government would be a priority: “We will answer to all New Yorkers, not to any billionaire or oligarch who thinks they can buy our democracy,” he said at the time.
Now, in Khan, he is tapping a strong advocate of executive power to help lead the EDC, which manages properties and projects on behalf of the city as well as some public-private partnerships.
While at the FTC under Biden, Khan pursued aggressive antitrust enforcement actions against large multinational companies including Amazon and Ticketmaster. Khan’s progressive antitrust philosophy upended decades of previous enforcement, shifting the focus from protecting price competition among companies to addressing the harms of market dominance for consumers.
“As commissioner of the FTC, Lina Khan consistently delivered for working Americans, taking aim at the corporate monopolies that not only hurt working people at the checkout line but make life harder for the small businesses that are the backbone of our economy,” Mamdani said.
Khan was the youngest person to serve as chair of the FTC when she was appointed in 2021 at age 32.
Following Wednesday’s announcement, some voices in the business community expressed concerns about Khan’s likely approach to the position.
“The Economic Development Corporation exists to expand the economy, attract private investment and jobs, and foster innovation,” said Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Competitiveness Coalition, a conservative-leaning free-market advocacy group. “Entrusting that mission to an activist regulator whose federal tenure was defined by hostility toward enterprise, severe agency mismanagement, and job losses is a disaster in the making for New Yorkers.”
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