Brendan Thomas Carr (born January 5, 1979) is an American lawyer who has served as the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) since 2025. He has additionally served as a commissioner of the FCC since 2017.
Carr studied government at Georgetown University and graduated from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America in 2005. He worked in private practice before joining the FCC in 2012 as an attorney and becoming an advisor to Commissioner Ajit Pai in 2014. After Pai became the commission's chair in January 2017, Carr was appointed its general counsel. In June 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Carr to serve as a commissioner of the FCC. As commissioner, Carr initially focused on networks, although he began criticizing social media companies and China over perceived authoritarian policies later in his first term. He was involved in the development of Project 2025 and authored a section of the Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership (2023).
In November 2024, president-elect Trump named Carr as his chair of the FCC. He took office following Trump's second inauguration. As chair, Carr investigated companies over their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, threatening to block business decisions if organizational hiring practices were not changed. He was involved in the merger of Skydance Media and Paramount Global, securing an ombudsman to ensure different perspectives; Carr's role in the merger led to ethics concerns. Carr has sought to implement or broaden the FCC mandate to ensure public-interest programming, particularly in countering a perceived liberal bias in broadcasts. In September, Carr threatened broadcasters to suspend the late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, leading to broad criticism.
Early life and education (1979–2005) Brendan Thomas Carr was born on January 5, 1979, in Washington, D.C. Carr was the son of Barbara and Thomas Carr. Barbara was a clinical psychologist, while Thomas was a defense lawyer who once represented President Richard Nixon. He was raised in McLean, Virginia. Carr began attending the Potomac School in fourth grade and was a goalie on the school's varsity soccer team in his junior and senior years. According to Bloomberg News, Carr was noted for his "unruly behavior" on the field and as a "zealously competitive team player".
After attending James Madison University for a year, Carr graduated from Georgetown University in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts in government and a minor in history and anthropology. After graduating, he spent a year as a paralegal for a firm near the office of Bob Beizer, the president of the Federal Communications Bar Association and an associate of Carr's father. Beizer advised Carr to attend a law school of the Catholic University of America and earn a telecommunications certificate. Carr attended its Columbus School of Law and graduated in 2005 with a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude. He interned for the Federal Communications Commission's spectrum-enforcement division after his first year. Carr is a Republican and a Catholic.
Career Private practice and advisorship (2005–2017) After graduating from the Catholic University of America, Carr worked for Wiley Rein, representing Verizon and AT&T. He temporarily worked for Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit judge Dennis Shedd as a law clerk from 2008 to 2009. He joined the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2012 as an attorney in the Office of General Counsel. Carr became an advisor to commissioner Ajit Pai in 2014. After Pai became the chair of the FCC in January 2017, Carr was appointed as its general counsel. He later married Machalagh Carr, the former oversight staff director on the House Committee on Ways and Means, with whom he has two children.
Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (2017–2025) In May 2017, Politico Pro reported that Carr was among several potential candidates to be nominated for the vacant FCC seat previously occupied by Tom Wheeler. On June 28, president Donald Trump nominated Carr to the commission. Carr appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation the following month in which he defended his independence over his association to Ajit Pai. On August 2, the committee advanced his nomination, although Democrats objected to a five-year continuation of Carr's term. The following day, Carr was confirmed by the Senate in a voice vote. As commissioner, he visited a fiber optic cable manufacturing facility in North Carolina that month. Carr marked his tenure with a focus on wireless infrastructure policy, particularly in streamlining deployment of 5G towers. He voted to repeal net neutrality rules in December.
Although Carr was confirmed through the remainder of Wheeler's term, his nomination for a five-year term elapsed at the conclusion of the first session of the 115th United States Congress in January 2018. Democrats intended to combine Carr's reconfirmation with a nominee to succeed commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who was widely expected to retire. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation voted to advance Carr's nomination for a five-year term in a 14–13 vote along party lines on January 18; Democrats mounted opposition over Carr's vote to repeal net neutrality. After his nomination was temporarily held up by West Virginia senator Joe Manchin over exempted rural broadband subsidies in the Mobility Fund and by Alaska senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski over an Alaskan telecommunications company's exclusion from the rural health subsidies, Carr was confirmed by the Senate on January 3, 2019, amid a government shutdown that furloughed most employees at the FCC.
At a regulatory summit in Brussels in February 2018, Carr outlined a three-step process to ensure regulators are prepared for 5G. Later that month, he discussed streamlining the historic and environmental review process for 5G networks. Carr's plan received criticism from city officials, and also from Native American tribes—whose role in the review processes would be nullified, and consequently Democrats, although it was praised by telecommunications companies, including Sprint and AT&T; the plan was approved by the FCC in September. In July, Carr proposed a million telehealth fund for low-income Americans. The following month, the commission unanimously approved the fund as an extension of the Universal Service Fund.
Leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, Carr began philosophically distancing himself from Pai, focusing on reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He continued to focus on 5G, announcing a blueprint for the FCC to follow in March 2021. Nomination delays from president Joe Biden enabled the FCC to retain a majority. His efforts to advance 5G faced resistance from the Biden administration, leading to a public conflict between Carr and administration officials, including the president. He led an effort to withhold authorization from Chinese manufacturers, including Huawei and ZTE, over alleged national security concerns.
In September 2022, a policy advisor to Ajit Pai contacted Carr to introduce him to Wesley Coopersmith, the chief of staff to the Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts. Coopersmith informed him of a working project, later known as Project 2025, to redevelop the federal government towards a conservative philosophy, sending him the first and seventh edition of the Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership. Carr told Coopersmith that he was interested in contributing to Project 2025; despite the possibility that Carr's work could be considered political activity by Internal Revenue Service statute, an ethics lawyer for the FCC determined that Carr would not be in violation of the Hatch Act, although she warned that he should distance himself from his work at the FCC. Carr wrote several pages involving telecommunications and technology regulation for Project 2025. His work included calling for regulating technology companies and imposing transparency rules.
Chair of the Federal Communications Commission (2025–present) Appointment and early investigations As early as 2020, Carr was believed to be a possible successor to chairman Ajit Pai. After Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, he was widely expected to be named as chair of the FCC. According to The New York Times, Elon Musk privately expressed support for Carr, with whom he had a good relationship. On November 17, 2024, Trump named Carr as his nominee for chair. Carr stated his intention to broaden the FCC's mandate to include social media companies.
Carr became chairman after the Trump's second inauguration on January 20, 2025, although he lacked a Republican majority, pending the confirmation of Olivia Trusty. That month, Carr ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS sponsorships as a violation of commercial advertising regulations and stated that he did not believe Congress should continue to fund both organizations. The following day, he requested a transcript of vice president Kamala Harris's interview on 60 Minutes; the FCC released the transcript in February. That month, Carr reopened a complaint against WPVI-TV that had been dismissed by Jessica Rosenworcel, his predecessor as FCC chair, over ABC's moderation of the September 2024 presidential debate between Trump and Harris. Carr also accused NBC of trying to "evade" the FCC's equal-time rule when Harris appeared on the final Saturday Night Live episode before the 2024 election.
Carr heralded a shift in the FCC's purpose towards leveraging the bully pulpit against opponents of Trump's ideology. An ally of Musk, he awarded Musk's SpaceX federal radio spectrum, and began an investigation into EchoStar over 5G deployment requirements, threatening to give satellite spectrum to SpaceX instead; in response to the inquiry, EchoStar stopped paying interest payments. In April, Carr urged European countries to sign contracts with SpaceX over Chinese competitors. He eliminated a proposal that would have barred landlords from forcing bulk internet service on residents, and publicly questioned the Global Positioning System, seeking alternatives. In March 2025, Carr announced an initiative titled "Delete, Delete, Delete" with the aim of eliminating existing telecom regulations. Carr utilized Direct Final Rule to remove regulations without the required full public comment period.
In February, Carr ordered investigations into diversity, equity, and inclusion practices at Comcast, as well as into KCBS over its coverage of immigration actions in San Jose, California. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks told ABC News that Carr's investigations of corporate DEI policies exceeded the FCC's statutory authority. In apparent response to Carr, Paramount Global, which had a merger pending before the FCC, ended its DEI policies. In March, Carr told Bloomberg News that he would block any mergers involving companies with DEI; the following week, he announced that he had opened an investigation into The Walt Disney Company over its DEI policies, and also threatened to revoke ABC's broadcast license over the practices. Citing a complaint from Great American Media, Carr sent a letter to Google chief executive Sundar Pichai and YouTube executive Neal Mohan asking if YouTube TV was engaging in "faith-based discrimination". The following month, T-Mobile closed its joint venture deal with Lumos Networks after agreeing to end its DEI policies. The FCC approved Verizon's acquisition of Frontier Communications in May, assuring a commitment from Verizon that it would end its DEI practices. In July 2025, Carr proposed abolishing the FCC's long-term broadband benchmark of 1Gbps download speeds and 500Mbps upload speeds, arguing that it was prejudicial towards slower satellite and wireless technologies; the policy was formally abolished in August 2026.
Broadcasting rules and suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live!