Well, This Explains a Lot

It appears that senior bureaucrats at the Federal Trade Commission are heavily invested in the large internet companies, which might explain why, at least until Lina Khan took the helm, the agency was so lackadaisical at enforcing antitrust law:

The top watchdog of American business is also home to Washington’s most active Wall Street investors.

The Federal Trade Commission in recent years has opened investigations into nearly every major industry. It has launched antitrust probes into technology companies, examined credit card firms and moved to restrict drug, energy and defense-company mergers.

At the same time, senior officials at the FTC disclosed more trades of stocks, bonds and funds, on average, than officials at any other major agency in a Wall Street Journal review of financial disclosures at 50 federal agencies from 2016 to 2021.

Many of the investments overlapped with the FTC’s work.

………

The officials were most heavily invested in technology, an industry that has come under increasing scrutiny by the agency. Nearly one in four top FTC officials owned or traded individual stocks of tech companies such as Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. 

………

An FTC chairman owned Microsoft, Oracle and AT&T Inc. while the agency was conducting sensitive reviews affecting the tech and telecom sectors.

The head of the FTC’s international division bought and sold Facebook stock through a financial adviser as his office coordinated with overseas enforcement officials on an investigation involving Facebook.

And an FTC consumer-protection official owned stock in more than 10 companies as the agency scrutinized mergers or acquisitions involving the firms. 

………

For years, the FTC has faced bipartisan criticism for not more aggressively enforcing competitive practices in corporate America. Now it is poised to take a far higher profile. President Biden has signaled tougher antitrust scrutiny and appointed as chairwoman a vocal critic of large companies.

Senior bureaucrats should be forbidden from trading individual stocks, and their ownership of various funds should limited to those available to the general public.  (The same goes for Congress)

Of course, at least according to Nancy "We are a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that" Pelosi, won't ever allow anything close that to reach the floor of the House, so this will continue.