News broke that the FAA had awarded a huge contract to Starlink earlier this week and–considering Elon Musk’s current role–that set off plenty of alarm bells for anyone who thinks corruption is bad, especially since the government already had a contract with Verizon. As it turns out, that new Starlink contract is actually worth $2.4 billion, the Washington Post reports. While the FAA said on Wednesday that “no decisions have been made,” two sources reportedly confirmed the plan to cancel the contract with Verizon.
There was, of course, a time when government officials at least tried to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest, but don’t you worry. Musk has also been put in charge of self-monitoring any conflicts of interest, and you know he wouldn’t abuse people’s trust in any way. Hypocrisy? He would never. This is a man who you can trust when he says Verizon’s system doesn’t work. It’s not like he took loyalists from SpaceX and installed them in the FAA or anything like that. Thankfully, it’s nothing like that at all because that would be bad. Could you imagine the scandal if it was true, though?
Read more: Even SpaceX Would Apparently Rather Use A Ford F-150 Lightning Than Tesla Cybertruck
Questioning Musk’s Decision
Elon Musk – Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
“Because of Musk’s current position in DOGE and his closeness to Trump he and his company are getting an advantage and getting a contract,” John P. Pelissero, the director of an ethics center at Santa Clara University, told the Washington Post. “Who’s looking out for the public interest here when you get the person who’s cutting budgets and personnel from the FAA, suddenly trying to benefit from still another government contract?”
Still, he’s just someone who studies ethics for a living. Now, if a podcaster started pointing out red flags, then we’d really have to be concerned.
Jessica Tillipman, the associate dean for government and procurement law studies at George Washington University School of Law, also pointed out that canceling a government contract takes time and can be incredibly expensive. “When the government terminates a contract it’s not like it shuts off the spigot,” she told the Washington Post. “It’s expensive to wind down a contract. It’s very expensive and it’s complicated.” She also said negotiating a settlement can take a full year, and the agency still has to follow the process laid out in the Competition and Contracting Act unless there’s a clear national security or urgent public interest issue. “But the question is,” Tillipman adds, “how is it so urgent when you already had a contractor dealing with it?,”
Verizon Contract History
Duffy the Secretary of Transportation – Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The original contract with Verizon dates back to 2023, when it was chosen to build what’s known as the FAA Enterprise Network Services Program or FENS, which had been in use since 2002. The contract required Verizon to operate and maintain the system for 15 years, and it was supposed to connect about 4,600 sites. Payment was reportedly set to begin next month, before Musk’s team decided Starlink should get the contract instead, one source told the Washington Post.
Multiple senior officials at the FAA apparently refused to approve the change, resulting in Musk going over their heads to get their boss or Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to give him what he wants. While it’s true that the FAA’s technology has been slow to update, the entire point of the contract with Verizon was to replace that same outdated technology.
According to Tillipman, the failure to follow proper procedure means there’s a good chance lawsuits are incoming. Thankfully, we have a completely impartial Supreme Court, that will obviously find there’s nothing wrong with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk seemingly snatching a multi-billion-dollar contract from another company to instead award it to his own company.
Read the original article on Jalopnik.
