According to Rolling Stone, on Friday, Federal Aviation Administration officials were ordered to “start looking for tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal” after The Washington Post reported that the FAA may cancel a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon to overhaul US airspace management systems and instead enter into a deal with Elon Musk’s company. It has not yet been publicly confirmed whether the FAA has actually canceled the Verizon deal in favor of Starlink.
Anonymous sources told Rolling Stone that the orders from FAA officials on Friday were “verbally communicated” to employees, an “unusual” move. This comes a few days after Musk said on X TV that the situation around air traffic control communications is “extremely dire,” saying that the current system (which he mistakenly attributed to Verizon and later added a correction) “fails very quickly.” He also stated that “Starlink terminals have NO communication with air traffic control”.
Bloomberg, citing sources close to the matter, had previously reported that 4,000 Starlink terminals were being sent to help modernize FAA networks, which the FAA confirmed. In a statement posted to X in response last week, the FAA claimed that it had “considered the use of Starlink since the previous administration.” However, as recently as Wednesday, the FAA said in interviews with The Washington Post and other outlets that it has not yet made a decision on the Verizon deal.
The agency is one of many that have been hit by layoffs under Musk’s DOGE over the past few weeks, with hundreds of FAA employees being fired in February.
