T-Mobile CEO Apologizes For “Offending” EFF And Its Supporters

After an aggressive response to his company, T-Mobile, being called out for being anti-net neutrality on its new “Binge On” product by the EFF, CEO John Legere has backtracked a bit. In case you missed it, he flippantly asked “Who the fuck is the EFF?” during a Twitter Q&A last week.

EFF supporters told him. In droves.

Here was his apology today, which is, of course, still mainly in defense of Binge On:

Look, by now you know that I am a vocal, animated and sometimes foul mouthed CEO. I don’t filter myself and you know that no one at T-Mobile filters me either (no, they don’t even try). That means I will sometimes incite a bit of a ‘social media riot’, but I’m not going to apologize for that.

I will however apologize for offending EFF and its supporters. Just because we don’t completely agree on all aspects of Binge On doesn’t mean I don’t see how they fight for consumers. We both agree that it is important to protect consumers’ rights and to give consumers value. We have that in common, so more power to them. As I mentioned last week, we look forward to sitting down and talking with the EFF and that is a step we will definitely take. Unfortunately, my color commentary from last week is now drowning out the real value of Binge On – so hopefully this letter will help make that clear again.

Legere rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but the carrier business is an ugly one, so it takes quite a bit to stand out from the noise of it all. He did it, it worked. And, well, we have an apology and more discussion on whether Binge On is throttling or smart and helpful for consumers. Ultimately, you’re the judge.