Trump Names Brendan Carr Next FCC Chairman

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2024 – Republican Brendan Carr will become the next Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the next Trump administration, President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday night.

"Thank you, President Trump! I am humbled and honored to serve as Chairman of the FCC. Now we get to work," Carr said on his X feed shortly after the announcement.

Trump said he would designate Carr "as permanent Chairman."

"Commissioner 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. "He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America’s Job Creators and Innovators and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America."

Carr, who as a sitting FCC Commissioner will not need Senate confirmation, has been the front runner for many months. If Trump had alternatives to Carr in mind, he did not float any names. The New York Times recently reported that Trump insider Elon Musk was pushing Carr's name in transition meetings at Mar-a-Largo in Palm Beach.

In his new role, Carr is expected to challenge the speech moderation practices of social media platforms and determine how to roll back Net Neutrality and digital discrimination rules adopted under current Democratic FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

Also, TV and radio station owners say they are counting on Carr to relax local and national ownership restrictions.

An open question is whether Carr would attempt to restore $885 million in broadband subsidies for Musk's Starlink satellite internet service that Rosenworcel pulled last December, saying the cost and performance of the technology fell short of the agency's eligibility criteria.

Carr will also take over in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which eliminated automatic judicial deference to the FCC's interpretation of ambiguous statutes.

If tradition holds, Rosenworcel will step down near the time of Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025.

But that will leave the FCC with four voting commissioners, two Republicans and two Democrats. That means Carr will need to await confirmation of a third Republican before he can drive his agenda forward.

Carr's selection triggered a round of congratulations from former FCC colleagues like Chairman Ajit Pai and many right of center media and political supporters who, like Musk, wanted him to get the job all along.

If there was a surprise reaction Sunday, it came from Democrat Gigi Sohn, whom Biden nominated for the FCC in October 2021 but couldn't get confirmed.

"Congratulations to [Brendan Carr] on his designation as FCC Chair. We may not agree on everything (or much of anything!), but he is highly qualified and a good guy. I wish him the best," Sohn said on her X feed.

Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., issued a tough anti-Carr statement.

"Far from defending the First Amendment, this is what censorship looks like: A regulator implicitly threatening private companies for their speech. The FCC under Trump is prepared to become the Federal Censorship Commission. We can't let that happen," Markey said.

He was referring to the Nov. 13 letter that Carr sent to the heads of Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft for participating in what he called a "censorship cartel" and promised to take action against them after the transition.