Former FCC Chair Ajit Pai Supports TikTok Ban; Files Brief With Supreme Court Saying Social Media App has Precedent
- The Indian American who led the federal watchdog agency in Trump’s first term, and has previously led efforts against other Chinese tech firms like Huawei, is siding with the U.S. Congress and going against his former boss.
Former Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai is supporting the federal law that could ban TikTok. The Indian American who led the federal watchdog agency in Trump’s first term, has previously led efforts against other Chinese tech firms like Huawei. But this time, he’s siding with the U.S. Congress and going against his former boss. The TikTok law requires its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest to avoid a U.S. ban.
Pai joined Thomas Feddo, an official in the Department of Treasury during Trump’s first term, to file a brief with the Supreme Court on Dec. 28, “to call on the court to uphold the law, telling the justices that it has precedent,” Business Insider reported. His “primary argument is that there is existing legal precedent to support the legality of the law, passed by Congress last year that would require TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell the platform or cease operations in the U.S,” the publication said.
Trump also filed a brief with the Supreme Court on the same day, “asking the court to put the law on hold,” the Business Insider report added. The law is set to go into effect on Jan. 19, one day before Trump assumes office for the second time.
Congress passed the bipartisan law in April, “citing national security concerns over the Chinese ownership of the popular social media company,” Business Insider said. It established “a nine month deadline for ByteDance, to sell the app to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the United States,” the report added. However, TikTok filed a lawsuit in May, “arguing that the law violates the First Amendment,” the report noted. When the DC Circuit Court upheld the law on Dec. 6, TikTok then filed an appeal to the Supreme Court on Dec. 18. The court is expected to hear arguments on Jan. 10, according to Business Insider.
Technology website Gizmodo noted that although Pai finds himself “in conflict with Trump right now, he’s still very much in alignment with 2017-2021 Trump,” who “first floated the ban and tried to carry it out all on his own via executive order in 2020.” But that order was eventually blocked by a federal judge. “Trump also backed rules that restricted the sale of equipment to companies like Huawei and ZTE in an attempt to cut off the Chinese firms’ access to American technology,” according to the Associated Press.
But Trump had “a change of heart” on his TikTok earlier last year, Gizmodo said, “after meeting with Jeff Yass, a major investor in TikTok and, and a big donor to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Trump’s “support for the app grew following his victory which he attributed at least in part to his popularity on TikTok,” the website added.
Who is Ajit Pai
Once identified as “the most hated man on the internet,” on social media and on various websites, Pai chaired the FCC from 2017 to 2021. He became the first Asian American to hold office in the FCC when Trump designated him as chairman in 2017. Later that year, he was nominated to serve another term (while remaining chairman of the FCC), and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Oct. 2, 2017. He joined the FCC as a lawyer in its Office of General Counsel in 2007.
Pai began began the term with the controversial decision to roll back Title II classification and sought to loosen restrictions on broadcast station group ownership, undoing the net neutrality rules put in place under President Obama. He oversaw the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, which he called “a unique opportunity to speed up the deployment of 5G throughout the United States.”
Pai also “implemented new measures to fight robocalls and established a new three-digit code, 988, for a national suicide prevention hotline,” according to The Verge. He told The Washington Post that his work to streamline the agency’s operations and regulations was the “most transparent FCC in history.” He credited it for making “our nation’s communications networks faster, stronger, and more widely deployed than ever before.”
Pai returned to the private sector in January 2021, after almost a dozen years at the agency. Currently a partner at Searchlight Capital Partners, a global investment firm, he was elected to a three-year term as an at-large member of America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) Board of Trustees in November 2023.