Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in Ohio, claimed that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as part of its “partisan vendetta” against Elon Musk and his Twitter account in 2022.

In 2019, the FTC started investigating Twitter after it reported that its privacy policies were being violated. Twitter paid the federal government a fine of $150 million in 2022. Jordan claims that the commission didn’t intend to impose a fine until Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder and started to buy it outright in April 2022.

Jordan wrote to FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan that “the Commission did not take any action against Twitter in the year 2021.” “A closer examination of the provided information suggests that the FTC has taken unjustified actions in relation to Twitter for an approximate year gap. It is reasonable to conclude that neither you or Acting Chair Slaughter had any serious plans to take action against Twitter before political pressure was applied due Mr. Musk’s imminent acquisition.

After Musk’s purchase, the FTC was heavily lobbied by elected Democrats to investigate Twitter. President Joe Biden stated that Musk’s foreign investment was “worth looking at”, while seven Democratic Senators, led by Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, called on Khan “to vigorously oversee [the FTC’s] consent agreement with Twitter.”

Jordan began an investigation into the FTC’s supervision of Twitter in the early days of the 118th Congress. In a House Judiciary Committee Republican Staff Report, FTC letters were published requesting Twitter to provide information on journalists Musk worked with in order to produce the Twitter Files. Jordan stated in his letter that the FTC had repeatedly refused to obey the Judiciary Committee subpoenas.

Republicans have expressed concerns that Khan, an ex-Columbia University professor, uses the FTC as a tool to promote a partisan political agenda. Khan, a proponent of aggressive enforcement against antitrust, has asked companies to provide information on how mergers may impact ESG goals and unionization. She has also taken steps to create and enforce regulations, without congressional approval.

The FTC has three commissioners despite the federal law allowing it to have up to five. The FTC Act states that no more than three FTC Commissioners can be from the same political party. After heated disagreements over Khan’s regulatory approach, Republican commissioners Noah Phillips resigned from the FTC in 2022, and Christine Wilson left in 2023.