Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez criticized Verizon for giving in to Republican Chairman Brendan Carr’s demands. “This is shameful,” she wrote on X. “Capitulation breeds capitulation.”
The Federal Communications Commission held Verizon’s $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications hostage until the wireless carrier May 15 agreed to jettison its DEI programs.
That the hardball tactic by President Donald Trump’s hyperaggressive FCC chair, Brendan Carr, worked all but assures that other big mergers requiring the agency’s blessing will face the same litmus test. That includes the $8 billion merger of Skydance and CBS-owner Paramount as well as cable and broadband giant Charter Communications’ $22 billion acquisition of rival Cox Communications.
