The Revolving Door Spins: Former Trump FCC Boss Ajit Pai Promoted To Top Wireless Industry Lobbyist

You probably recall Ajit Pai, Trump’s first FCC boss. Pai took a mindless hatchet to broadband consumer protection and media consolidation limits with no shortage of scandal. Like that time he turned a blind eye as the telecom industry used dead and fake people to generate fake support for shitty policies (like killing net neutrality). Or that time he made up a DDOS attack on the FCC to downplay massive public backlash to those same, unpopular policies.

Pai, who conflated having an outsized coffee mug with charm, has joined the proud revolving door tradition of lobbying for the telecom industry. After spending a little time at a PE firm, Pai has emerged as the new CEO of the CTIA, the wireless industry’s top lobbying organization:

“I am honored to lead CTIA. The wireless industry is a key driver of technology innovation and investment in the U.S. And it helps advance America’s global competitiveness, national security, and economic security,” Pai said.”

Such recent U.S. wireless industry innovations include allowing one of the worst hack attacks in U.S. history by the Chinese; launching 5G at speeds and prices much slower/higher than the global average; mindless competition-eroding and layoff producing consolidation, and supporting the authoritarian overthrow of the U.S. government and full dismantling of all remaining corporate oversight.

Pai is replacing Meredith Attwell Baker, a former FCC Commissioner who previously lobbied for Comcast. To pretend any of this is ethical, FCC officials often sign a loyalty pledge stating they won’t go work for the industries they regulate for at least two years. It’s corruption that we’ve broadly normalized.

Sadly Pai, who basically rubber stamped the wishes of the telecom industry’s biggest players with ruthless efficiency, almost makes current Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr look competent in comparison. Both men are the textbook definition of regulatory capture, but Carr’s abuse of FCC authority to threaten companies and journalists that refuse to kiss Trump’s ass was something that even Pai refused to do.

Either way it remains an embarrassment that our top telecom policy makers are routinely mindless sycophants for industry. Any effort to disrupt this paradigm and install popular reformers, gets quickly dismantled by a corrupt Congress, as we saw with the scuttled FCC nomination of popular consumer advocate Gigi Sohn.

At this point, it’s extremely difficult to appoint real reformers to key government agencies without the approval of corporate power. So what we wind up usually getting are charmless careerists (too feckless to challenge corporate power) or just absolutely corrupt knobs whose entire mission involves maximizing quarterly revenues for some of the least popular companies on Earth.

And it doesn’t matter how badly you abuse the trust of the U.S. electorate, harm the public welfare, or undermine competitive markets, you can always rest assured that there’s a six figure salary at a think tank or lobbying org waiting for you at the end of the line.