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Days after Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency cut hundreds of jobs at the Federal Aviation Administration — including critical safety roles — his company, SpaceX, has secured a contract with the agency to use Musk’s Starlink satellite internet to help manage U.S. airspace. Yes, it’s a massive conflict of interest.
According to Bloomberg, which first reported the deal, the billionaire approved the shipping of 4,000 Starlink terminals to the FAA last week. In a statement released Monday, the FAA wrote that one such terminal is already being tested “at its facility in Atlantic City and two terminals at non-safety critical sites in Alaska.”
The partnership between Starlink and the FAA also throws into limbo a $2.4 billion contract awarded to Verizon Communications in 2023. The deal tasked Verizon with providing “telecommunications, information management services, and other capabilities to support its continuing mission of providing the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world,” for a 15-year period. A representative from Verizon Communications did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
“The Verizon system is not working and so is putting air travelers at serious risk,” Musk claimed on X on Monday, but provided no evidence to support the assertion.
According to CNN, the total value of the contract between SpaceX and the FAA has not yet been disclosed, but even more concerning is that the award comes as Musk both guts the agency of critical staff — and plants his own SpaceX employees within the FAA. It’s a massive conflict of interest, particularly when one considers that the FAA is charged with regulating and permitting space travel.
Earlier this year, the FAA ordered SpaceX to carry out an investigation of what the company called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” (read “explosion”) of its Starship rocket. Last year, the agency proposed $633,009 in civil penalties against SpaceX, citing failure “to follow its license requirements during two launches.”
The move prompted Musk to declare that “the fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!”
It might be why almost immediately after being granted virtually unchecked administrative powers, Musk set his “chainsaw of bureaucracy” against the agency that regulates his own company.
Earlier this month, hundreds of FAA employees were summarily axed from their jobs, even as the nation was roiled by anxiety over a series of heavily reported aviation incidents. The Trump administration insisted that no one who was safety-critical had lost their jobs. The Associated Press quickly identified “personnel hired for FAA radar, landing, and navigational aid maintenance,” among those ousted. Rolling Stone found that members of the FAA’s obstacle impact team had been let go, as well as lawyers in charge of stopping pilots with drug and alcohol problems from flying airplanes.
“It’s such a pointless bloodbath,” one source told Rolling Stone. “Every time we try to figure out why this or that was done, the answers you get from the Trump and Musk guys usually amount to: Because we can. We’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Firing people that do this sort of work is not conducive to preventing accidents,” another source said. “None of these accidents were anything having to do with the new administration — but that’s coming. When you lay off people that investigate these things and prevent these things, it’s only a matter of time.”
The reality may be that Musk is simply not interested in preventing accidents, and is instead focused on ensuring an agency capable of putting the brakes on his tendency to flout safety rules is brought under his thumb. It’s perfectly fine with the White House, which earlier this month said that “if Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, Elon will excuse himself from those contracts.”
With virtually unchecked oversight and the ability — although not necessarily the legal authority — to oust anyone who gets in his way, Musk is not excusing himself — he’s cashing in.
