The Archive

TECH LOOKAHEAD

The Trump tech era has begun

Carr takes the FCC by storm

Venture capital takes the Capitol

The Tech Power Matrix

Spectrum and the national security conundrum

THE TOP

The Trump tech era has begun

Welcome back to Tech Quarterly.

Since our last quarterly edition, President Donald Trump took the oath of office once more and is shaking up Washington. As part of that, tech policy debates are spreading all over the capital like the cherry blossoms opening up for the tourists this week.

Sure, there’s Hill action on artificial intelligence and protecting kids online — issues we love bringing you news about. We’ve got new Cabinet and agency personnel, too, and fights over confirmation.

Then don’t forget all the policy areas like energy that are quickly becoming core tech matters, plus all the disruption that inevitably comes with a Trump administration. It’s a lot.

Right in the middle of all of this is Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr. He spoke with us at length about DEI, the possibility that Trump might fire his Democratic colleagues and the spectrum issues that are splitting congressional Republicans.

Carr’s been happy to court controversy, and he didn’t hold back on any topic.

Speaking of shaking up, the tech lobby looks pretty different from how it did even a year ago. Venture capital is having a moment, with friends in the administration right up to Vice President JD Vance.

The sector isn’t going to pass up the opportunity to have its say, so we laid out some obstacles it’ll face along the way.

We’re also digging deep into the spectrum issue. In terms of stakes, it’s worth about $100 billion for the reconciliation package. That’s real money, even in Senate terms, but there are a lot of factors and personalities that will decide precisely how much it adds up to. We’ll tell you what they are.

Of course, we wouldn’t send you a quarterly edition without the Power Matrix. It’s our take on all the lawmakers, officials and companies in tech policy — and which are up and which are down.

— Ben Brody and Diego Areas Munhoz

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THE INTERVIEW

Carr takes the FCC by storm

FCC Chair Brendan Carr has been making a lot of news as he cranks through a busy agenda at the Federal Communications Commission. He’s taking an aggressive approach that has thrilled his supporters and drawn strong condemnation from his foes.

We spoke with Carr in a nearly 40-minute-long interview this week (you can listen to it here) about much of what he’s been up to at the FCC and what he plans for the weeks and months ahead.

First, some news: Carr told us he’s sending a letter to ABC’s parent company, Disney, to probe its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. He said the company’s DEI initiatives may run afoul of the agency’s equal employment opportunity requirements for licensees.

Carr has made President Donald Trump’s crusade against DEI a priority for his chairmanship. Beyond probing Disney, Carr has said he will block mergers pending before the commission if one of the companies involved has DEI initiatives.

“To all businesses regulated by the FCC, I suggest that they get busy ending their promotion of DEI,” he said.

We also spoke with Carr about negotiations over making more spectrum commercially available, his views on whether Trump can fire FCC commissioners and his space agenda.

Let’s unpack the interview.

Spectrum: Carr told us he’s spoken with “high-ranking officials” at the Defense Department about the effort in Congress to make more spectrum commercially available.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), leaders of the Senate Commerce and House Energy and Commerce Committees, are pushing to expand spectrum availability for commercial use in the Republican reconciliation package. They also want to renew the FCC’s authority to auction spectrum, which has been expired for two years.

But members of the national security community and some of their Republican Hill allies have raised concerns about the effort, citing security risks.

Carr said he’s involved in talks with lawmakers and others to find a compromise and revealed the White House has been holding meetings on this issue.

Here’s Carr:

Media probes: Soon after taking over the FCC, Carr revived complaints against CBS, NBC and ABC over various issues concerning the 2025 election after they had been dismissed by the previous chair, Jessica Rosenworcel. He’s also investigating public broadcasters NPR and PBS for allegedly airing commercials.

Carr told us he wants to be “even-handed” in his approach, but many Democrats and some civil liberties groups say that hasn’t been the case and that Carr is chilling speech. They point out that while he brought back the complaints against the three networks, he didn’t revive one against Fox.

When we questioned Carr over the Fox complaint, which was centered on its coverage of the 2020 election, he said it was different from the others. He said there was a public comment period for the Fox complaint while the others were “summarily dismissed” without a record.

Agency independence: Trump’s assertion of control over independent agencies has drawn a lot of concern, but the president’s supporters say it’s within his constitutional authority. Trump has fired Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.

These officials are challenging their firings, and the Supreme Court will likely have to decide the issue eventually. The Humphrey’s Executor decision, which curbed the president’s power to remove officials at independent agencies at will, dates back to 1935.

But Carr noted to us the Communications Act of 1934, which created the FCC, was enacted before that Supreme Court ruling.

“Congress decided to impose no limit at all on the president’s removal of an FCC commissioner,” he said.

Space: Carr said he wants the United States to lead in the space economy, but some of his recent decisions, which potentially benefit Elon Musk’s Starlink, are drawing opposition.

Carr touted his approval of Starlink’s proposal of direct-to-cell service in partnership with T-Mobile. That came despite opposition from other telecom titans AT&T and Verizon.

Smaller satellite companies like EchoStar and Viasat have also raised concerns about diminishing competition in the sector as Starlink is gaining ground.

A potential unfair advantage for Musk has also been a concern for Democrats on the Hill, as we’ve reported.

But Carr dismissed concerns of an anticompetitive advantage and cited Globalstar’s partnership with Apple, AST SpaceMobile and AT&T, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, which plans on operating a satellite constellation similar to Starlink.

“That’s a really good, robust amount of competition given where we are in terms of the emergence of space services,” he said.

Universal Service Fund: We also spoke to Carr about the case currently playing out at the Supreme Court over the FCC’s Universal Service Fund program, which promotes service access to all Americans.

Justices are hearing arguments this morning over the constitutionality of the program that has been challenged by a conservative group over its funding and administration, which they say circumvent Congress. The USF is administered by the nonprofit Universal Service Administrative Company and is paid for by contributions from telecom providers.

But Carr didn’t firmly say he wants his agency’s program saved by the court.

Here’s Carr:

As we’ve reported, saving the program is a priority for members of both parties on the Hill.

– Diego Areas Munhoz

VC/DC

Venture capital takes the Capitol

When Teresa Carlson was running Amazon’s public sector cloud business in the 2010s, she said she tried to get venture capital engaged in Washington policy conversations. After all, VC invested in the tech that would work on the cloud to serve the government.

“They didn’t really back then,” Carlson told us recently. “It was like, ‘Really? Why?’”

It’d be hard to argue that’s still the case.

VC is undeniably having a D.C. moment. Key VC figures, including Marc Andreessen and David Sacks, have turned into vocal backers of President Donald Trump, with Sacks being among the VC alumni staffing the administration.

Even Vice President JD Vance spent time in VC, and recently rolled out some tax priorities at a summit convened by Andreessen’s firm, a16z. The VC firms are staffing up in the capitol too.

“We are excited,” said Carlson, who recently launched an “institute” within the VC firm General Catalyst to focus on policy. “When you say, ‘Hey, why are you here? And is it good timing?’ It’s great timing!”

There are a couple of reasons for the VC moment besides the affinity on the personnel level. Trump’s administration wants to spur American tech startups and bring them into government work. Indeed, Carlson said the Ukraine war spurred interest by defense-related startups even before Trump was reelected.

Venture itself has also grown its influence on the economy, and tech startups are increasingly focused on areas like health and energy that are much more highly regulated than social media or enterprise software.

“If you’re building a photo sharing app, you don’t need a lobbyist,” said Zak Kukoff, a former VCer who now chairs the tech and venture practice at the lobbying firm Lewis-Burke Associated. “But if you’re building a defense weapons app or space company or a nuclear fusion business, you do need a lobbyist and you probably need more than one.”

Not everything, to be clear, is rosy and unanimous. Sequoia Capital is pulling out of Washington. Some VC firms invest in startups that want to clamp down on digital gatekeepers like Apple, Kukoff said, while others in the venture sector see Big Tech as providing access to millions of customers instantly.

As in Trump’s “America First” coalition, high-skilled immigration is an issue too.

There are some people who “think that America First means Americans First… and a very large component of folks who think that America First means bringing the best team of people possible to America,” Kukoff said. The latter is especially common in VC, he added.

And then, of course, there’s DOGE. Theoretically, bringing on more tech is a way to get greater government efficiency. In reality, though, Elon Musk has been more of a contract-cutter and skeptic of government software procurement.

“We have had some companies say they’ve gotten contracts pulled,” Carlson said. “When you’re trying to drive innovators and transformative tech into government… you don’t want them to have bad experiences when they’re early into getting contracts.”

Overall, as important as it is to talk to the Hill, VC has to make sure it’s chatting with administration too, Carlson said.

“You cannot ignore the executive branch, clearly, right now, because they’re making so many moves and changes,” she said. That’s a task that’s made harder as the sector waits for Senate confirmations and the subsequent hires of lower-level officials, she added.

When the time comes, though, we expect VC will at least be able to get its voice heard.

— Ben Brody

WHO’S UP, WHO’S DOWN

The Tech Power Matrix

— Ben Brody and Diego Areas Munhoz

WHAT’S THE FREQUENCY KENNETH

Spectrum and the national security conundrum

The debate over the Republican majority’s filibuster-proof reconciliation package has dominated much of Washington, but there’s one issue that has been heating up the telecom world: Spectrum.

The Republican chairs of the Senate and House commerce committees, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rep. Brett Guthrie (Ky.), want to make more electromagnetic spectrum commercially available. They have a lot of support among the ranks because sales could be in the hundreds of billions and help offset the cost of other GOP priorities.

Mid-band spectrum, in particular, has been a focus for the lawmakers and carriers as they say it is absolutely crucial to boost 5G service in the United States. But much of those frequencies are currently controlled by the Pentagon and defense officials and their allies on the Hill don’t really want to give it away.

The brawl has pitted commerce-aligned lawmakers and telecom carriers against national security hawks and the Pentagon.

We’ve written extensively about Cruz and Guthrie’s case for making more spectrum available, and this seems to be where most Republicans stand. But we wanted to take a beat and explore some of the arguments being made against it from the defense hawks.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) has been a leading opponent against the effort to take the mid-band spectrum away from the Pentagon. He has asked nearly every Defense Department nominee under consideration in the Armed Services Committee whether auctioning off this spectrum is a good idea and they’ve said it really isn’t.

Most recently, as much of Washington turned their attention to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing on Tuesday, when officials were grilled about the Houthis attack inadvertently leaked to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on Signal, Rounds asked CIA Director John Ratcliffe about spectrum.

His response echoed what many other officials have said. Here’s Ratcliffe:

And, like many officials and hawks on the Hill, Ratcliffe said the details have to be discussed in a classified setting.

Rounds and others have reinforced that much of the work done on those frequencies is sensitive and can’t be revealed publicly. As we scooped, Rounds, Cruz, Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), and Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), another Pentagon ally, received a classified briefing on spectrum last month.

From what has been said publicly, radars and key communications use some of those frequencies. As we reported in our Sunday newsletter, House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) has drawn a red line on those uses and told us his staff is working with Energy & Commerce Committee staff on what bands could be auctioned.

Rounds also told us that spectrum would be key for an eventual U.S. iron dome, an advanced missile defense shield similar to what is used in Israel and has been championed by President Donald Trump.

When it comes to the radars, opponents of the spectrum auctions have said that it would be very expensive to update Navy destroyers that currently use those bands. Those costs could be even larger than the auctions themselves, they’ve said.

Rounds and Pentagon officials have suggested using “dynamic spectrum” in which the bands would be shared between the DoD and commercial use. But they admit the technology isn’t quite there yet and needs further testing. The shared spectrum would also drive down the price tag for the auctions, reducing its revenue-raising capability so coveted by lawmakers.

Cruz, for his part, has pushed back against many of these claims and said that leading in 5G is just as much a national security priority to beat China. As we scooped in our AM edition, he has also blamed Biden-era defense officials and military contractors for a campaign against making more spectrum available.

The next few weeks will test whether this brawl will end in compromise or a continuation of the status quo.

– Diego Areas Munhoz