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Ajit Pai, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in Donald Trump’s first term, is leaving his old boss and promoting him. The Supreme Court will allow the ban on TikTok to get ahead. Business Insider reported on thisPai and former Treasury Department official Thomas Fedo filed a brief last week urging the justices to uphold legislation that would ban TikTok from operating within US borders, despite Trump’s rush to halt the ban.
Pai’s main argument is that there is existing legal precedent to support the legality of a law passed by Congress last year that required TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform or cease operations in the United States. This precedent: Pai’s crackdown on Chinese companies.
During his tenure as FCC chief, Pai designated two companies headquartered in China national security threats. The agency has banned mobile providers from using government subsidies to buy telecommunications equipment from makers Huawei and ZTE because the companies could be cooperating with the Chinese government to spy on Americans. journalists and intelligence community.
Pai called the approach taken to restrict apps like TikTok under the Americans with Foreign Enemies Controlled Applications Act “extremely similar” to efforts to crack down on Chinese telecommunications equipment providers: companies that are under Chinese control and pose a particular national security risk.
As Pai finds himself in conflict with Donald Trump, who is presenting his own brief in 2024 asks the court to delay Despite the January 19 deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok, it is still very much in line with Trump’s 2017-2021. It was Trump who first lifted the ban and tried to implement it all by himself through an executive order In 2020, it was eventually blocked by a federal judge. Trump also supported regulations restricting sales It has given equipment to companies such as Huawei and ZTE in an attempt to cut off Chinese firms’ access to American technology.
But Trump changed his mind about the TikTok attack earlier this year after meeting with TikTok’s main investor, Jeff Yass, and you won’t believe it! It earned nearly $100 million conservatives are driven by this past election cycle. Support for the app grew stronger after his victory in the 2024 presidential election, which he attributes at least in part to his activism. Popularity on TikTok. This will come as a big surprise, but TikTok has started Winning Trump’s support and suddenly, by an apparently unrelated coincidence, there was a program More friendly to Trump-related content. How does such a wild thing happen.
In any case, there’s no indication that Pai will return to the Trump administration (he seems more than happy to play a role at a busy private equity firm. acquisition of telecommunication companies), so it’s probably safe for him to take a stand against his former boss. If anything, Paine’s position is more principled than Trump’s, so give credit where it’s due.
