Not surprising anyone, Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai announced that he plans on leaving his post on Jan. 20 in the coming year. What Pai will do after leaving his government post is anyone’s guess, but I would put all of my money down on something in the private telecommunications lobbying industry. His tenure under Trump has been predictably grotesque in its lathering of corrupt big business largesse and deregulating an already barely regulated telecommunications sector.
Like everyone else in the Trump administration, Pai has lied to Congress, pushed false data about fake successes, received dubious funds from big companies that got preferential treatment, and has been ridiculed throughout the process for being the perverse sociopath he seems to be. He’s also promoted corrupt and criminal individuals for positions of power (den of thieves and all of that). Pai’s most infamous achievement was to end the consumer protections of net neutrality. Like everything else his Republican-controlled FCC did, he supported his decision to do this with false data and under dubious, possibly criminal circumstances. But this was not all Pai accomplished.