Donald Trump names Federal Communications Commission commissioner Brendan Carr agency chair

Donald Trump has nominated Brendan Carr, an ally of Elon Musk, as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Commissioner of Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr has been nominated as chairman of the agency. Picture: AFP.

Donald Trump has nominated Brendan Carr, a Republican made commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission during the President-elect’s first term and renominated by Joe Biden, as the agency’s chairman.

Mr Trump’s latest nomination was no surprise: Mr Carr, an ally of Elon Musk, had been considered by people close to the Trump campaign to be a leading contender for the role.

Announcing the nomination, Mr Trump said on social media: “His current term runs through 2029 and, because of his great work, I will now be designating him as permanent Chairman.”

Reuters reports that Mr Carr has been a supporter of Mr Musk and his efforts to earn subsidiaries for broadband internet service. He also criticised Vice President Harris’s appearance on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”

Mr Carr, who has been with the FCC since 2012 and was an adviser to former chairman Ajit Pai outlined many of his views for the FCC in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy paper.

The paper pushed for increased scrutiny of big tech firms such as Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google and urged authorities to further deregulate the broadcast industry to allow more local TV stations to merge.

Many TV broadcasters, programmers and cable companies struggling with flagging growth see mergers as their surest path to boost profits.

“We have an upcoming new administration and it’s too early to tell. But it may offer a pace of change and an opportunity for consolidation that may be quite different,” Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav said during his company’s earnings call on Thursday.

With AFP