Tech billionaire Elon Musk is in an unprecedented position to divert funding to rebuild the nation's aging air traffic control systems into his own pocket, columnist Thomas Black warned in a Bloomberg Opinion analysis published on Wednesday.
Musk, who has been given massive authority over government contracts and personnel through President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force, has already faced furious accusations of conflicts of interest, most recently in a mysterious $400 million State Department contract for "armored Teslas" that was swiftly paused after it gained public attention.
But Musk's influence over the Federal Aviation Administration, coming at a time when air traffic control is under a hiring strain and America is reeling from multiple deadly plane crashes, is something on an entirely new level, wrote Black.
"A conflict too blatant to ignore has surfaced between Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Musk’s startup known as SpaceX, and the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates SpaceX," wrote Black. "Musk is pushing SpaceX’s satellite broadband product, Starlink, as a quick solution to the FAA’s antiquated air-traffic-control systems and is muscling in on a $2.4 billion contract already awarded to Verizon Communications Inc. to upgrade FAA’s operations, as chronicled in detail by Bloomberg News."
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Trump's stated rationale for appointing Musk to his role is that he is so wealthy he's impossible to bribe and doesn't need to steal taxpayer funds — a similar defense Trump's own supporters have given of him, despite an endless parade of corruption scandals. But the Starlink contract issue in particular "undercuts the whole argument that Musk has no need nor interest in taking advantage of his position as Trump’s right-hand man to further his business interests, and even fans of DOGE should urge Musk to back off."
The fact of the matter, Black wrote, is that Starlink's array of 7,000 low-earth-orbit satellites is still fundamentally new and unproven at scale. The company may be successful, innovative, and keeping the U.S. space industry competitive, and our air traffic control systems may be hopelessly outdated and in need of overhaul, but "The FAA, responsible for keeping the skies safe, isn’t an agency where quick fixes should be tolerated nor where cutting edge technology should be tested."
"Musk and those who have direct ties to SpaceX, which seems to be DOGE’s biggest source of workers, should recuse themselves when dealing with NASA and the FAA. If SpaceX and Starlink are the best option, that should be determined by a competitive and transparent bid evaluated by the experienced professionals at the agency," Black concluded. "Trump has said Musk would not take part in any space-related government decisions. He should prove that wasn’t a hollow promise."
