The
first
Trump
FCC
tried
to
give
Musk
nearly
a
billion
dollars
to
deliver
expensive
Starlink
access
to
some traffic
medians
and
airport
parking
lots.
The
Biden
FCC clawed
back
most
of
those
subsidies,
(correctly)
arguing
that
the
service couldn’t
deliver
consistent
speeds,
and
if
we’re
going
to
spend
taxpayer
money
on
broadband,
more
future-proof
and
less
capacity
constrained
options
like
fiber
and
5G
should
probably
be
prioritized.
This
reasonable
ruling
resulted
in
no
limit
of
manufactured
grievance
in
the
Trump
and
GOP
extended
conspiracy
fiction
universe,
with
right
wingers
falsely
claiming
that
Musk
—
who
insists
he
hates
subsidies until
he
doesn’t — was
somehow
being
unfairly
victimized
by
the
previous
administration.
Not
surprisingly,
Trump
2.0
is
going
to
massively
over-compensate
for
this
fake
scandal,
and
slather
their
favorite
fake
engineer
billionaire
manbaby
with
cash
at
every
conceivable
opportunity.
That
apparently
starts
with
giving
Musk
and
Starlink
a lucrative
new
FAA
contract as
Musk
and
his
4chan
tween
DOGE
minions
set
about
pretending
to
fix
government
by throwing
it
into
chaos.
Musk
appears
to
be
trying
to
elbow
out
Verizon,
which
has
an existing
15
year,
$2
billion
contract with
the
agency
to
upgrade
its
infrastructure
that
was
obtained
through
traditional
transparent
bidding
processes.
The
length
and
price
tag
of
Starlink’s
new
FAA
contract
were,
unsurprisingly,
not
publicly
disclosed.
Which
is
weird
for
a
DOGE
figurehead
that
professes
to
care
so
much
about
transparency:
“The
contract
comes
while
Musk
is
leading
efforts
to
make
deep
cuts
in
federal
government
spending,
including
staffing
cuts
at
the
FAA,
and
some
critics
are
raising
questions
about
conflicts
of
interest
over
his
role
overseeing
government
agencies
that
are
supposed
to
be
regulating
his
businesses.”
Bloomberg had
a
little
more
leaked
inside
detail,
noting
the
partnership
would
“eventually”
include
4,000
Starlink
terminals
and
be
deployed
over
the
next
12
to
18
months.
Follow
up
reporting
from
the Washington
Post suggests
there’s
some
consternation
about
Musk’s
giant
handout
among
FAA
officials.
In
a
post
to
his
right
wing
propaganda
platform,
Musk
stated,
without
any
sort
of
evidence,
that
the
“Verizon
system
is
not
working
and
so
is
putting
air
travelers
at
serious
risk.”
Basically
falsely
claiming
that
Verizon
might
be
killing
U.S.
air
travelers:
I’d
just
like
to
pause
for
a
moment
to
acknowledge
that
as
somebody
who
has
probably
written
more
about
Verizon
than
anybody alive,
it
takes
a
very
specific
type
of
shitty
villain
to
have
me backing
Verizon.
Verizon
signed
up
for
Trump
2.0
eager
to
get
a
giant
tax
cut
for
doing
nothing.
And
relentless
attacks
on
organized
labor.
And
the total
evisceration of
corporate
oversight
of
whatever’s
left
of
FCC
consumer
protection
authority.
And
they’re
keen
to
get
their
giant $20
billion
merger
with
Frontier rubber
stamped.
That’s
a
lot
of
potential
money
at
stake,
so
I’m
not
sure
Verizon
will
show
any
backbone
and
file
suit
here.
But
if
they
don’t,
shareholders
will
certainly
have
the
opportunity
to
sue.
Knowing
Verizon’s
greasy
lobbying
and
legal
practices pretty
intimately,
it’s
all
a
very
leopards-eating-faces
sort
of
affair.
But
again,
Musk
stealing
Verizon’s
FAA
contract
is
just
one
of
countless
conflicts
of
interest
that
arise
with
having
an
unelected
bureaucrat
illegally
declaring
how
government
should
or
shouldn’t
function
and
illegally
bypassing
bidding
processes.
Not
to
mention
the
numerous
privacy
and
national
intelligence
issues.
The
FAA
contract
is
certainly
just
the
opening
salvo
for
Musk
favoritism.
The
U.S.
government
has
already
threatened
to pull
Ukraine’s
access
to
Starlink unless
they
sign
off
on
a
mineral
deal
that
would
be
beneficial
to
Tesla.
You
probably
also
missed
that USAID
officials
were
investigating
Starlink‘s
use
in
Ukraine
right
before
Trump
and
Musk
engaged
in
a
rapid
unscheduled
disassembly
of
the
agency.
It’s
clear
the
Trump
NTIA
is
also
hoping
to
redirect
some
of
the
$42.5
billion
in
BEAD
broadband
infrastructure
subsidies
away
from
existing
projects and
toward
Musk’s
Starlink
whenever
possible.
That’s
not
just
bad
due
to
corruption,
but
because
it’s
going
to
wind
up
redirecting
a
lot
of
taxpayer
money
away
from
small
local
businesses
and
popular
community-owned
broadband
networks.
Starlink
is
a
good
option
if
you’re
stuck
in
the
middle
of
nowhere
with
nothing
else.
But
“I
didn’t
do
the
reading”
guys
like
Joe
Rogan
tend
to
think
Starlink
is akin
to
some
kind
of
magic
pixie
dust you
can
just
sprinkle
around
to
fix
everything.
They
like
to
ignore
that
the
platform can’t
really
scale,
customer
service
is largely
nonexistent,
and
it’s too
expensive for
the
folks
most
in
need
of
reliable
broadband
access.
They
like
to
ignore
that
the
nature
of
satellite
physics
and
capacity
means slowdowns
and
annoying
restrictions
are
inevitable.
They
also
like
to
ignore
the
system
is harming
astronomical
research and the
ozone
layer.
You
know,
small
details.
Rank
corruption
aside,
the
GOP
is
genuinely
convinced
that
Musk
is
an
engineering
super-genius
who
can
fix
government
with
a
wave
of
his
hand.
They
genuinely
have
no
idea
that
this
persona
was
a
press-enabled
mythology
providing
cover
for
a
rank
opportunist
who
takes
credit
for
other
peoples’
ideas,
something
the
tech
press
only
belatedly
discovered
during
his
bungled
takeover
of
Twitter.
So
they’re
keen
on
throwing
all
of
their
eggs
in
the
Elon
Musk
basket,
fairly
oblivious
to
the
fact
they’ve
given
absolute
power
to
a
conspiratorial
oligarch
who
genuinely
has no
Earthly
idea
what
he’s
actually
doing.
So
yeah,
a
lot
of
this
is
just
corrupt
cronyism
pretty
typical
in
an
authoritarian
kakistocracy.
But
a
lot
of
it
genuinely
is
being
driven
by
rank
delusion
into
Musk’s
actual
intellect
and
expertise,
which
is
going
to
end
extremely,
extremely
badly
for absolutely
everybody involved.
More
Law-Related
Stories
From
Techdirt:
Massachusetts
Judge
Dismisses
Auto
Industry
Lawsuit
Over
State’s
Popular
‘Right
To
Repair’
Reforms
South
Dakota
Lawmakers
Send
Unconstitutional
Age-Verification
Bill
To
The
Governor’s
Desk
Ninth
Circuit
Says
Officers
Can
Be
Sued
For
Destroying
A
Home
While
Searching
For
A
Suspect