Five key players for Trump on tech

Here are five of the biggest players to watch on technology:

1. Peter Thiel, one of the co-founders of PayPal, was arguably the sole top Silicon Valley executive to have publicly backed Trump during the campaign. He is also reportedly considering a run for governor in California in 2018, in a race that may pit him against another billionaire, the Democratic environmentalist Tom Steyer.
2. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) will oversee the confirmation process for Trump’s nominees to the Federal Communications Commission and will likely have a say in who is selected to chair the commission. Some of Thune’s legislative priorities could get more traction under the Trump administration, including sharing government-owned wireless spectrum with the private sector, rewriting the Communications Act and expanding broadband access to rural communities.
3. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai is widely seen as Tom Wheeler’s likely successor as chairman of the FCC. As chairman, Pai will get to set the FCC’s agenda and potentially reverse policies imposed under Wheeler, including net neutrality. Pai has already expressed interest in reevaluating the rules as soon as possible.
4. House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is an outspoken opponent of the net neutrality rules enshrined in the FCC’s Open Internet Order.
5. The Trump transition’s FCC landing team will be in charge of setting the agenda and recommending hires for the new administration when it takes over the agency. The group consists of three scholars from the conservative American Enterprise Institute: Roslyn Layton, Mark Jamison and Jeffrey Eisenach, as well as David Morken, the founder of Republic Wireless and Bandwidth.com. Layton, Jamison and Eisenach are all critics of net neutrality and are generally seen as traditional conservatives when it comes to telecommunications policy.