The FAA is considering dropping a $2.4 billion deal with Verizon in exchange for the free use of billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite services, a deal that has critics howling even as federal contracting delays hamper modernization of the FAA’s weather and navigation systems. 

This week the FAA acknowledged that it is testing out Starlink in remote “non-safety critical” locations in New Jersey and Alaska to determine reliability of the service. The deal includes the use of 4,000 Starlink terminals. 

The FAA was reportedly supposed to begin paying Verizon next month for services to connect 4,600 FAA sites. The 15-year deal, awarded in 2023, was earmarked to update the FAA’s decrepit 2002 system by providing  a “highly available and secure enterprise network to support all of the agency’s mission critical applications across the National Airspace System (NAS).” The FAA has not made a decision about whether it will go ahead with the Verizon contract. 

The FAA’s current communications system is at risk of “catastrophic failure” within months, Mr. Musk warned in a post on X. He offered the Starlink terminals, which are already in orbit, at “NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity.”

Mr. Musk’s Starlink service has provided critical communications during crises and natural disasters over the past five years. Starlink facilitated Ukraine’s front line during its war with Russia. Emergency communications were quickly established for hurricane relief in the Bahamas and North Carolina, as well as during Australia’s 2020 bush fires and the recent wildfires at Los Angeles. 

Starlink is also deployed in remote locations around the world, including in several rural American communities lacking internet access.  

Nonetheless, Mr. Musk’s critics are hammering the billionaire’s conflicts of interest and disregard for the federal contracting process. The Washington Post, owned by Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, Mr. Musk’s chief rival in the space race, reported this week that Tesla and SpaceX have received $6.8 billion in federal government contracts over the past year and $38 billion over the past 20. Mr. Bezos’ companies have reportedly received at least $15 billion in funding.

In response to the FAA’s announcement, Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut wrote FAA Secretary Duffy, asking for documentation about Mr. Musk’s role in FAA decision-making since he began running President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, and in particular Starlink’s ability to get a no-compete bid for services.

“The FAA’s hurried adoption of Starlink for services already contracted to Verizon, the absence of any justification for exempting Starlink from the competitive bidding process, and Mr. Musk’s undue influence over the FAA’s decision-making appear to point to one conclusion — that Mr. Musk is corruptly and unlawfully enriching himself by steering this multi-million-dollar FAA contract to his own business,” he wrote.

Earlier this month, Mr. Blumenthal, who is the ranking member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence, wrote to all six of Mr. Musk’s companies, asking them to preserve all records pertaining to government activities since Mr. Trump’s inauguration on January 20. 

Separately, he questioned Tesla’s receipt of a $400 million contract from the State Department for armored electric vehicles. The proposed deal, solicited during the Biden administration, is currently on hold, a State Department official told the Hill.  

Starlink has long been under the watch of the Biden administration. Just two years ago, the FAA proposed fines on Starlink for its failure to comply with FAA rules to submit a “collision avoidance analysis worksheet” before launching its satellites from Florida. The FAA at the time told PCMag that Starlink did in fact submit the information, just not in conformity with regulatory requirements. 

At the same time Starlink is connecting otherwise isolated areas by a mere flip of the switch, efforts by terrestrial competitors to create internet access in remote locations are still in the planning stage. The 2021 infrastructure bill proposed by President Biden and approved by the Democratic-led Congress, included $42.45 billion for broadband access, in particular fiber optics, to be established in remote communities.  Verizon was among the telecommunications firms expected to benefit from the legislation. As yet, no cable has been laid.

“It has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest,” wrote the current FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, whose department oversees telecommunications, in an X post last summer. 

“It gets worse. While the Biden Admin’s $42.45B plan from 2021 has not resulted in even a single shovel’s worth of dirt being turned, the government in 2022 revoked an award to Starlink that would have delivered high-speed Internet to 642K rural locations,” he added.

Mr. Carr wrote a letter to Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg on Thursday registering his objections to the telecommunications firm’s ongoing DEI practices. He suggested that Verizon’s future contracts could be in peril.

“Please reach out to the agency personnel that have been working on Verison’s pending transactions at the FCC. They are the FCC personnel most familiar with Verizon’s operations due to their merger review activity,” he wrote.