President-elect Donald J. Trump on Sunday chose Brendan Carr to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, naming a veteran Republican regulator who has publicly agreed with the incoming administration’s promises to slash regulation, go after Big Tech and punish TV networks for political bias.
Mr. Carr, who currently sits on the commission, is expected to shake up a quiet agency that licenses airwaves for radio and TV, regulates phone costs and promotes the spread of home internet. Before the election, Mr. Trump indicated he wanted the agency to strip broadcasters like NBC and CBS of their licensing for unfair coverage.
Mr. Carr, 45, was the author of a chapter on the F.C.C. in the conservative Project 2025 planning document, in which he argued that the agency should also regulate the largest tech companies, such as Apple, Meta, Google and Microsoft.
“The censorship cartel must be dismantled,” Mr. Carr said last week in a post on X.
Mr. Carr could drastically reshape the independent agency, expanding its mandate and wielding it as a political weapon for the right, telecommunications attorneys and analysts said. They predicted Mr. Carr would test the legal limits of the agency’s power by pushing to oversee companies like Meta and Google, setting up a fierce battle with Silicon Valley.
Mr. Carr has “proposed to do a lot of things he has no jurisdiction to do, and in other cases he’s blatantly misreading the rules,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-chief executive of the nonpartisan public interest group Free Press.
“Commissioner Carr is a warrior for free speech, and has fought against the regulatory lawfare that has stifled Americans’ freedoms, and held back our economy,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.
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