from the dysfunction-junction dept
Back in April, the Trump FCC was sued by Nina Burleigh and Frequency Forward, alleging that Elon Musk’s influence in government was “creating unmanageable conflicts of interest within the FCC.” There’s not much debate there; Musk is getting slathered in new taxpayer subsidies via a Republican rewrite of the infrastructure bill, and all inquiries into his companies’ shady dealings have largely been killed.
The lawsuit also points out that Trump’s FCC and agency boss Brendan Carr have “acted favorably on several Starlink initiatives,” and recently opened a dodgy “investigation” into Dish Network, which the suit alleges is flimsy cover to force Dish to sell its valuable spectrum holdings to Elon Musk and Starlink.
The lawsuit also claims that the Trump FCC violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by wrongfully withholding records on DOGE’s activities at the FCC.
The Judge managing the lawsuit apparently doesn’t think much of Trump and Brendan Carr’s FCC responses to the inquiry so far. The plaintiffs in the case filed a motion for preliminary injunction last week (hat tip, Ars Technica) and received a quick ruling from US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in the District of Columbia.
While Jackson said the plaintiffs failed to meet the legal requirements for an injunction, she did take time to point out that Trump’s FCC is stonewalling on providing documentation:
“On July 2, 2025, the Court ordered that defendant “must file a dispositive motion or, in the alternative, a report setting forth the schedule for the completion of its production of documents to plaintiff, on or before July 23, 2025.” However, defendant’s July 23, 2025 status report provided no timeline, and it was vague and uninformative. Further, the anticipated “initial production” defendant referred to [in] that filing, amounted to only 35 pages.”
Of course Elon Musk isn’t the only one benefiting From Brendan Carr’s tenure at the FCC. The agency is taking a hatchet to what’s left of media and telecom company oversight and consumer protection, which is a huge boon to shitty predatory broadband monopolies, giant media conglomerates, prison telecom monopolies, robocallers, and other bad actors.
Carr has tried to dress up this cronyism and regulatory capture as an act of efficiency, calling this his “Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative (which Ars notes is being conducted with even less transparency and public input than ever before). But there’s nothing efficient about corruption and a broken government helmed by weird zealots, keen to leverage what’s left of government power to trample free speech and bully companies into fecklessness.
DOGE has also provided flimsy “innovation efficiency” cover in the press for the brutal dismantling of both corporate oversight and the social safety net, in addition to just generally being a wasteful, costly mess all by itself. What’s left of federal consumer protection and corporate oversight really is being summarily executed by radical assholes, and the impact will be massive and generational. Yet, with scattered exception, most U.S. journalists, politicians, and policy folks don’t seem particularly interested.
Filed Under: brendan carr, consumers, corporate oversight, doge, elon musk, fcc, lawsuit, regulators, telecom
Companies: frequency forward, spacex
