Republican FTC Commissioner Wilson announces resignation, saying Chair Khan has a ‘disregard for the rule of law’
Christine Wilson, nominee to serve on the Federal Trade Commission, testifies during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing in Hart Building on February 14, 2018.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Christine Wilson, the sole remaining Republican on the Federal Trade Commission, announced Tuesday she plans to resign, citing what she said was Democratic Chair Lina Khan’s “disregard for the rule of law and due process.”
Wilson announced her resignation, which she said will come “soon,” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Throughout Khan’s tenure at the helm of the commission, Wilson has frequently bemoaned her approach in remarks at public meetings and in speeches.
Wilson wrote in her op-ed that she has failed “to persuade Ms. Khan and her enablers to do the right thing, and I refuse to give their endeavor any further hint of legitimacy by remaining.”
Khan, who has been one of the most prominent figures of the progressive antitrust movement, has advocated for a more expansive approach to enforcement, including by pursuing risky cases with the potential to push the bounds of current case law. That approach has made her unpopular with more conservative antitrust thinkers, including Wilson.
Khan’s approach has come with risk, as most recently evidenced by the FTC’s failure in court to block Meta’s proposed acquisition of VR fitness app developer Within Unlimited. But those who support Khan tend to argue that if regulators win all their cases, they’re likely not bringing enough of them.
Wilson criticized the fact that Khan had not recused herself from an administrative proceeding on the Meta-Within deal based on her statements before joining the agency advocating for keeping the company from making future acquisitions. Wilson also admonished the two other commissioners, who supported her decision. The FTC ended up dropping the administrative proceeding anyway after failing to win a preliminary injunction in federal court.
Wilson said she also objected to the heavy redactions on her statement opposing Khan’s decision not to recuse, saying it did not contain any confidential business information and the redactions “served no purpose but to protect Ms. Khan from embarrassment.”
Wilson also took issue with other decisions by Khan, like the rulemaking seeking to ban most noncompete clauses, which Wilson claimed oversteps the agency’s authority. She also argued that in the absence of Congress passing legislation to restrict mergers, Khan “does so by fiat.”
“Abuse of regulatory authority now substitutes for unfulfilled legislative desires,” Wilson wrote.
Without Wilson, the FTC will have three remaining members of what is usually a five-member panel: Khan and Democrats Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. Former Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips, a Republican, resigned in October, but without the kind of broad critique that Wilson wrote. Phillips thanked Khan in his public note leaving the commission, though he too has criticized some of the measures she has pursued in the past.
The vacancy means President Joe Biden now has the opportunity to nominate two commissioners, though neither can be Democrats, since only three commissioners are allowed to be from the same party at a given time.
“While we often disagreed with Commissioner Wilson, we respect her devotion to her beliefs and are grateful for her public service,” Khan, Slaughter and Bedoya wrote in a joint statement. “We wish her well in her next endeavor.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers remarks next to U.S. President Donald Trump at an ‘Investing in America’ event in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2025.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, CNBC’s Megan Cassella reported.
The meeting comes as Nvidia rose slightly on Thursday, becoming the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion, beating Apple and Microsoft to the symbolic milestone. Nvidia touched the mark briefly on Wednesday during trading.
Trump praised Nvidia stock in a social media post Thursday morning.
“NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “COUNTRY IS NOW ‘BACK.'”
An Nvidia representative declined to comment, and it was unclear what the meeting is about, but Nvidia has been grappling with export controls on its artificial intelligence chips implemented by the Trump administration in April for national security reasons.
At the time, the U.S. government told Nvidia that its previously-approved H20 processor — intended exclusively for the Chinese market — would require an export license. Huang previously told investors that requirement effectively cut off Nvidia’s sales to China with “no grace period.” The AI chipmaker said that it would miss $8 billion in planned orders for the chip in the company’s July quarter.
“The $50 billion China market is effectively closed to U.S. industry,” Huang told investors on an earnings call in May.
Nvidia also faces another potential restriction on AI chip exports after the Trump administration cancelled a planned rule by former President Joe Biden called the “AI diffusion rule.” The Trump administration promised newer, simpler restrictions later this year on which countries could receive Nvidia’s technology.
WATCH: Fundstrat’s Tom Lee: Nvidia being the most valuable company in the S&P makes a lot of sense
Technology
Bitcoin sets another record above $113,000 as investors jump into risk assets, liquidate shorts
Nurphoto | Getty Images
Bitcoin climbed to new all-time high on Thursday, building on its previous record reached just a day earlier, as investors jumped into risk assets and liquidated short positions.
The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by about 2% at $113,459.16. Earlier, it rose as high as $113,863.18.
On Thursday afternoon, bitcoin saw about $318 million in short liquidations across centralized exchanges in a 24 hour period, according to CoinGlass. When traders use leverage to short bitcoin and the cryptocurrency’s price rises, they buy bitcoin back from the market to close their positions, which pushes the price up and causes more positions to be liquidated.
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