The United States of Corruption

In yet another chapter of the ongoing saga of corruption in our government, Elon Musk emerges with his attempt to steal a multi-billion dollar contract from a competitor. One can only imagine Musk’s delight in purchasing a position in the Trump Administration, where he gets to decide the winners and losers in our nation’s oligarchic takeover.

Here’s the story. Back in 2023, Verizon won a multi-billion dollar contract to upgrade the Federal Aviation Administration’s communication system. And now, well, that contract has been thrown into jeopardy. The FAA is now “reconsidering” the contract, potentially taking it away from Verizon and giving it to Elon Musk’s Starlink. Recall that the FAA plays a critical role in making sure your plane doesn’t crash into another one and that it gets to its destination safely and on time. It would seem that playing politics with the FAA’s communication system would put us all at risk.

The reconsideration of this contract strangely coincides with a significant shake-up in leadership at the FAA. Former FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker resigned on January 20 of this year, following intense public criticism from Elon Musk. Whitaker’s departure came after the FAA had fined SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace company and parent company to Starlink, for safety violations. This sequence of events naturally leads one to speculate whether the forced resignation was a strategic move, potentially clearing the way for Starlink to steal the multi-billion-dollar contract from one of its competitors.

Adding to these concerns, the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Musk personally oversees, plays a role in evaluating government contracts. This is an obvious conflict of interest—Elon Musk, as both a high-level government advisor and the head of a private company bidding for federal contracts, has tremendous influence over decisions affecting his own business ventures.

Keep in mind that government contracts are supposed to be open to competitive bidding. Also, canceling a major contract like this one requires clear justification. That’s not likely to happen.

It’s worth noting that, according to reports, multiple FAA officials have declined to approve the contract change. It’s reassuring to know that many individuals working for the government genuinely care about the public’s tax dollars and are not going along with what they believe is a corrupt business practice. Undoubtedly, these brave individuals will soon find their way onto DOGE’s termination list.

In their defense, SpaceX—again, Starlink’s parent company—has denied reports that Starlink is "taking over" the Verizon contract, noting that Starlink is merely being tested as a partial solution. According to SpaceX, Starlink will offer free services in certain areas, such as Alaska, where installing fiber connections is challenging and where critical information, such as aviation weather reports, needs to get through. Critics, however, argue that this might just be a stepping stone toward a complete contract takeover, circumventing standard procurement rules. In other words, this could be a backdoor way to wrestle a contract from Verizon. In sales, this is known as a 3-step solution, and it goes like this: First, you penetrate a target account with an initial solution, then you leverage that initial solution to install more solutions, and finally, you spread out and dominate the account, pushing your competition out.

The FAA, now unmoored from Whitaker’s oversight, has stated that no final decision has been made and that multiple technologies are being tested. In other words, they’re muddying the waters and making it sound as if Starlink isn’t the only one competing for the stolen contract. This is an old trick where obfuscation is used to hide the true motive. We all know how this “competition” is going to turn out.

This case raises valid questions about government transparency during the Trump Administration. Is the CEO of a corporation stealing contracts from competitors? Was Michael Whitaker, the former FAA Administrator, viewed as a barrier to Musk’s private agenda? As this nation succumbs to an increasing level of corruption at the highest levels, we can expect to see more instances where individuals buy influence in the Oval Office and reap tremendous returns on their investment.

Perhaps we should name Trump’s America as the United States of Corruption.