Elon Musk just did it. We have all been awaiting the clear, “In your face, because I can do this… ” conflict and sweetheart deal that he plays from both sides. It is also understood that to the extent that Musk has a conflict, Donald Trump has a conflict. Anyone who doesn’t firmly believe that sweetheart deals come with a fee – to the big guy that set it up, can’t read at this level, this is understood at this site. We have also watched and awaited for that moment things burst into the open – it just came yesterday, spilling over into today. In the call to cut government waste, Musk went in directions no one anticipated. No one believed the FAA needed cuts – it needed modernization, but that’s actually money invested. No one thought there was fat to trim, least of all the professionals in ATC. But Musk went ahead and created a crisis, putting staffing shortages on top of an aging computer system. Then, to the surprise of no one, Musk rides in providing the answer – his Starlink, to provide the net coverage and AI needed to… well, make a decent attempt at running the system and Space X is rewarded because the FAA are “the cops” in there.
What is most aggravating is that Starlink and Space X may well be the single best answer regarding a deal for a new system. The company’s net coverage married to Grok AI is probably attractive. It is not like Comcast is riding in with better stuff. But the thing is, we’ll never know if it was the best possible deal out there, nor whether the deal was competitive, because we have every reason to doubt that anyone else was even considered. After all, Starlink and Musk already have massive federal contracts. And there is the fact that the FAA is the regulatory body over Space X – the one that is currently investigating and fining Space X:
The conflict? Musk’s dual role. Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary, stands to profit—potentially big—from this FAA contract, though the exact dollar amount isn’t public yet. SpaceX already rakes in billions from federal deals (e.g., $4 billion with NASA), and Musk has a history of griping about FAA red tape holding back his launches—like the $633,000 fine in September 2024 for safety violations, which he called “lawfare” on X. Now, as DOGE chief, he’s slashing the very agency that regulates him while it simultaneously hands his company a lifeline to modernize its systems. Critics—like Senator Maria Cantwell, who wrote to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on February 6—call it a “conflict of interest” when someone “regulated by the federal government” shapes policies that could juice his bottom line or kneecap competitors like Verizon, which had the prior FAA contract Musk bashed as “not working” on X yesterday.
Anyone that even quibbles about whether the deal is a conflict is being so disingenuous as to be a joke. Not only is this a clear conflict, the dollar amount, the utter lack of accountability, and the lack of transparency (Why aren’t the numbers released?) make this the single biggest conflict of interest that I can think of going back two generations.
Back to the evaluation and plans as Musk’s Grok calls out Musk:
Does it hold water? The FAA needs an upgrade—nobody disputes that—and Starlink’s satellite tech could deliver. But Musk’s DOGE role gives him leverage to gut FAA resources (staff cuts reported by ABC News February 14) while his company swoops in with a fix. It’s not just optics; it’s a pattern—SpaceX engineers are even advising the FAA now, per WIRED February 19. No hard proof of backroom deals exists yet, but the setup screams risk: Musk could weaken a regulator to favor his empire.
Two further points. First, Musk could absolutely legitimately say that no one is better positioned to pick up this work and such a deal is obvious whether he leads it or not. Fine. It may be true. Find a third party to evaluate the needed work and get proposed bids, completely blind. It is easily done. Indeed, it is done all the time to get around potential conflicts. It wouldn’t be an issue at all. Musk knows it. I believe it is obvious that he’s simply taking advantage of his position. Second, these are the type of deals that live on two to three generations. There is a positive feedback loop. The more ATC comes to rely on Starlink and Grok AI, the more employees train on the system, the more that updates should be done on the system already in place, not a system that is a total overhaul. Thus it is that the deal isn’t just a conflict, it is the type that goes forth for 20-30 years – the life of the software (Which better be 20 years, it either works or it doesn’t). Again, perhaps the biggest conflict in U.S. history.
We knew it was coming. We knew it in the campaign. No one donates that many millions because they believe in a cause. No, it is always an investment. Everyone knew it. Now that investment is paying off. Too bad that Trump owes Musk so much given how much we all get to pay.
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First of all, how do we even know it’s the best available? We don’t, and if this is the way things go, we’re not going to find out. Because it doesn’t even entail the good side of capitalism, namely, competition. We already know, for example, that OpenAI is in an intensely competitive
position WRT Musk. So much so that Musk just offered to buy OpenAI for 97 billion, and Altman told him to go pound sand, it’s not for sale.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/experts-musks-97-billion-offer-010017301.html
Second, there’s a whole other issue that you didn’t discuss, even if it implied: the massive privatization of the government. This has already gone way too far, but what Musk is trying to do is completely out of bounds. The problem with privatization of government functions is that it becomes unaccountable to the citizens and only a matter of who’s got the biggest bucks. The potential for corruption is just astronomical. Look at the position SpaceX has already with regard to Ukraine. No private company should have that kind of power, it is not just a conflict of interest, it’s a monstrous security risk.
I talk about privatizing the profit and socializing costs all the time but you’re right – not in this context. I don’t know if the satellite system required and the software was all meant to be private to begin with. I don’t know how much of this is shuffling public work to a private company. Maybe a lot, maybe none. I just don’t know.
You are right about the security risk – that I didn’t cover and it certainly is. Indeed, Musk’s many citizenships and global interests should make one always question whether American secrets are for sale. He acts in his own self-interests first and always.
Good comment. You are 100% right.
jason
too bad people pay federal taxes
Anyone who knows anything about the much modified ChatGPT currently being masqueraded as Artificial Intelligence knows that it’s not up to the task of stopping aircraft, laden with actual living humans on board, from crashing into each other or the ground.
I certainly won’t be flying anywhere near USA airspace if this happens, and neither will any one else with any sense, or iota of intelligence.
Muskrat fails to realize that this thing he plans to fuck around with in such a cavalier ill-considered matter is not some commercial entity where any failures ensuing from radical changes result in inconvenience or mere financial loss, they may result in death.
And not just A death, mass casualties of numbers of people enough for anyone responsible for such changes to be charged with mass murder.
First the breaks the agency, then he hires himself to fix it. That’s essentially what’s going on.
Just to be clear, he’s not going to fix it in any case. He’ll just go on wrecking it and sucking money out of it. Not only has he no intention of actually fixing it, but even if he did he wouldn’t be able to, because he doesn’t have the expertise, he’s firing the very people who know most about running these agencies. Musk is absolutely not eliminating fraud, he himself is a huge fraud. That’s why the first thing he did was fire all the inspectors general, the ones whose job it is to zero in on waste and fraud in their agencies. Many of them had already nailed Musk for some of his dodgy negligence iwth SpaceX, Tesla, etc.