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Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is siding with Congress — and against his former boss, president-elect Donald Trump — in support of a federal law that could ban TikTok.
In a brief filed with the Supreme Court on Friday, Pai joined Thomas Feddo, an official in the Department of Treasury during Trump's first term, to call on the court to uphold the law, telling the justices that it has precedent.
Trump also filed a brief with the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the court to put the law on hold. It's set to go into effect on January 19, one day before Trump assumes office for the second time.
Congress passed the bipartisan law in April, citing national security concerns over the Chinese ownership of the popular social media company. It established a nine-month deadline for TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the United States.
TikTok filed a suit in May, arguing that the law violates the First Amendment. The DC Circuit Court upheld the law on December 6. TikTok then filed an appeal to the Supreme Court on December 18. The court is expected to hear arguments on January 10.
Pai was one of numerous people and organizations, from members of Congress to free speech groups, who filed briefs to the Supreme Court in support or opposition to the law.
Pai headed the FCC from 2012 to 2016 under President Barack Obama and then from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump.
In his filing, Pai's attorneys argued that the law has precedent.
They said he "spearheaded rulemaking" that prevented communications companies receiving federal funding from purchasing or using equipment from Chinese-owned tech companies like Huawei and ZTE over data privacy and security concerns.
The briefing says Pai also "put in place" the process for designating companies that could be a risk to national security. The document says these measures are "extremely similar" to the TikTok law passed by Congress.
"Congress and the Executive Branch have routinely identified in legislation or regulation specific companies under China's control that pose particular national security risk," the document says.
"In these other instances, just as with the Divestiture Act, Congress put in place a process for future designations in addition to naming particular threats."
Pai was a controversial figure during his leadership of the FCC. Under his tenure, the FCC ended net neutrality rules, which had governed the internet and been encoded in 2015. Net neutrality is the idea that internet service providers should treat all data the same, and not give preference to certain websites or slow down others.
In April 2024, the FCC announced an order that restored net neutrality as an industry standard.
Searchlight Capital — the private equity firm where Pai has been a partner since 2021, when he left his post at the FCC — did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider. An attorney for Pai declined to comment.
