Trump nominates big tech critic Brendan Carr to chair telecommunications regulator

President-elect Donald Trump will tap Brendan Carr, a critic of the Biden administration’s telecom policies and big tech, as chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), he has said in a statement.

Carr, 45, is the top Republican on the FCC, the independent agency that regulates telecommunications.

He has been a harsh critic of the FCC’s decision not to finalize nearly $900m in broadband subsidies for Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite internet unit Starlink, as well as the commerce department’s $42bn broadband infrastructure program and President Joe Biden’s spectrum policy.

Last week, Carr wrote to Meta’s Facebook, Alphabet’s Google, Apple and Microsoft saying they had taken steps to censor Americans. Carr said on Sunday the FCC must “restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.“

The president-elect has scorned actions by Disney’s ABC, Comcast’s NBC and Paramount Global’s CBS and suggested they could lose their FCC licenses for various actions. Trump also sued CBS over its 60 Minutes interview with vice-president Kamala Harris.

Carr criticized NBC for letting Harris appear on Saturday Night Live just before the election.

Trump in his first term called on the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses, prompting then FCC Chair Ajit Pai to reject the idea, saying “the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a licence of a broadcast station based on the content.“

The FCC issues eight-year licenses to individual broadcast stations, not to broadcast networks.

In 2022, Carr, a strong critic of China, became the first FCC commissioner to visit Taiwan. He has been an advocate of the FCC’s hard line on Chinese telecom companies.

Carr was a strong opponent of the FCC’s decision in April to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules that were repealed during the first Trump administration. The Biden FCC rules were put on hold by a federal appeals court.

Trump nominated Carr to the FCC during in his first administration in January 2017, after he had served as the FCC’s general counsel.

The incoming administration will need to nominate a Republican to fill a seat on the five-member commission before it can take full control of the agency.

Carr “is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans’ Freedoms, and held back our Economy,” Trump said in a statement on Sunday.