Synopsis
Elon Musk’s team is pushing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to modernize its outdated telecommunications systems with SpaceX’s Starlink terminals, aiming for rapid implementation. This urgency has led to tension, with the fate of Verizon’s existing contract unclear and safety concerns raised by some officials.
Two weeks ago, SpaceX engineer Ted Malaska showed up at the Federal Aviation Administration’s headquarters in Washington to deliver what he described as a directive from his boss.
Elon Musk: The agency will immediately start work on a program to deploy thousands of the company’s satellite terminals to support the national airspace system.
Malaska told those in attendance that the employees had up to 18 months to get the new program up and running, an unsettling timeline for aviation safety employees accustomed to a more deliberate pace. Anyone who impeded progress, Malaska said, would be reported to Musk and risked losing their jobs, according to two people familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Since he began overseeing the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has upended the norms of bureaucracy with a far-reaching initiative to scale back the size and scope of the federal government. So far, the tech billionaire’s team has moved to drastically scale back the US Agency for International Development, which provides life-saving medicines to people around the world, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which helps protect American consumers from financial fraudsters. At least 30,000 federal jobs have been eliminated under his watch.
Now a ubiquitous presence within the highest echelons of politics, Musk has shown up at a White House cabinet meeting, at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with a chainsaw on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference. But his team’s recent appearance at the FAA presents the starkest test yet of Musk’s ability to not just shrink government, but to transform his political power into potential business for his companies.
The FAA’s telecommunications networks are instrumental to overseeing 29 million square miles of US airspace and ensuring the orderly and safe movement of 45,000 flights daily. They are aging and long overdue for an upgrade. In 2023, the agency awarded telecommunications giant Verizon Communications Inc. a contract worth $2.4 billion to do just that.
