Gavin Wax, who turned the New York Young Republican Club into the "vanguard of the Trump movement," is the new chief of staff to commissione
Stephanie Mencimer at Mother Jones:
For the past six years, Gavin Wax has held court as the president of the New York Young Republican Club, a group he helped turn from a small, stodgy establishment outfit into “a vanguard of the Trump movement,” as he said last year. Under his leadership, the club has moved far to the right. It’s hosted events attended by white nationalists, budding foreign authoritarians, and of course, George Santos, whose congressional campaign it endorsed before he became a convicted felon.
Wax announced this month that he was stepping down as the club’s president, and on Friday he revealed that he would be taking a post in the Trump administration as chief of staff and advisor to Federal Communications Commissioner Nathan Simington. The 31-year-old former day trader has long been a die-hard Trump loyalist. “Once President Trump is back in office,” Wax said at the 2023 NYYRC annual dinner, according to Politico, “we won’t be playing nice anymore. It will be a time for retribution. All those responsible for destroying our once-great country will be held to account after baseless years of investigations and government lies and media lies against this man.” Like Trump, Wax was once a staunch opponent of media censorship and “Big Tech,” and had called for an end to legal protections for social media companies. An online libertarian magazine Wax founded, Liberty Conservative, once devoted quite a bit of ink to trolling Trump’s new benefactor, Elon Musk. (“Elon Musk: The Corporate Arm Of The Deep-State,” was one such 2017 article.)
Much of that rhetoric seems to have vanished since Musk bought Twitter and most of the tech world has gotten on board in support of Trump. Now, Wax’s focus at the FCC, like Trump’s, appears to be mainstream media outlets. In an email, he told me, “The issues of censorship, content moderation, and platform accountability remain important—not just in the context of individual CEOs, but as broader questions of public policy and civil liberties. We’re also focused on ensuring that licensed broadcasters are truly serving the public interest, as required by law. That includes holding legacy media to account just as much as newer tech platforms, and ensuring that all players in the communications space operate on a level playing field.” In 2023, Mother Jones identified Wax as one of a number of MAGA influencers who’d been defending the exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui with op-eds suggested by Guo’s supporters. Guo was convicted of racketeering and fraud last year. Wax had once been the marketing director for Gettr, a social media site allegedly controlled by Guo. But Wax told me that an important part of the FCC’s work now is “defending against foreign influence in our information ecosystem.” Wax’s ascension to the FCC was met with cheers in MAGA world from everyone from Steve Bannon to Kari Lake.
Gavin Wax, the far-right activist who helped turn the New York Young Republican Club into a MAGA haven, lands a prominent job in the FCC.
