The man who coined net neutrality is returning to work for the government. President Joe Biden appointed Columbia law professor Tim Wu to the White House National Economic Council. According The New York Times, he will act as special assistant to the president, advising him on technology and competition policy. It is an appointment that does not require Senate approval.
I am happy to say that I am joining the Biden White House to work on Technology and Competition Policy at the National Economic Council. Putting this Twitter feed on hold for now – see you!
– Tim Wu (@superwuster) March 5, 2021
Although he is best known for defending a free and open Internet, Wu has also called for the separation of Facebook and other major technology companies in recent years. In 2018, he published The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Golden Age. There, he argues that the concentration of economic power in only a few companies has led to the current political climate of low wages and extreme nationalism.
This is not Wu’s first term in government, nor is it his first time on the National Economic Council. He was also a member of the organization during the Obama administration, which did little to stem the growth of companies like Facebook and Amazon. “I worked in the Obama administration and worked in antitrust, so I’m going to take some personal blame here, but we don’t provide the merger oversight we should,” he said of his time on the board in an interview in 2019.