1d ago

Starlink poised to take over $2.4 billion contract to overhaul air traffic control communication

www.theverge.com Starlink poised to take over $2.4 billion contract to overhaul air traffic control communication

Cronyism, anyone?

Summary

The FAA is reportedly set to cancel a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon to modernize air traffic control communications and instead award it to Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Musk has publicly criticized Verizon’s system as failing, though without evidence. SpaceX employees have been embedded within the FAA, and some now have agency email addresses.

The move raises concerns about favoritism and conflicts of interest, especially as Musk’s companies have received $38 billion in government funding.

The contract transfer has not followed standard procedures, prompting resistance from senior FAA officials.

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pelespirit @sh.itjust.works

1d ago

Starlink poised to take over $2.4 billion contract to overhaul air traffic control communication

www.theverge.com /news/620777/starlink-verizon-contract-faa-communication-musk

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68 comments

This is handing the button that controls your life over to elon... He had them strategically turn off Ukraine's internet at a critical moment to benefit putin... What do you think he's going to do when Jasmine Crockett's plane in on final approach to land back in her district after having the "fuck off, elon" press conference?

Musk is a walking ethics violation.

Oh, that seems fine. Just removing a 15 year, 2+ Billion dollar contract Verizon just won in 2023, with a no-bid contract from the guy in the officially unofficial roll of gutting the US government.
Drain the swamp! /s
- This is NOT at all Corruption and in fact the United States Of American has NO Corruption at all and is the CLEANEST country in the World.

Aha! Trump uncovers corruption within DOGE itself!
- You misspelled creates
  
  Whoosh...
  Also, the org was corrupt on the face of it from the start, so there's not much more to be added now.

Im in my 30s and often wonder, has the world always been this infuriating? Were we going apeshit watching representatives openly steal our future in 2005? 1995?
Were dudes in 1955 Paris tearing their hair our how the president's third cousin is getting a contract to rebuild the entire railway system on the merit of fuck all?
- I'm old enough to say it was exactly like this back in 2005. That was a couple years after the Bush administration told blatant lies to start the Iraq War, ignoring the largest protests in the world up to the time. There was open corruption as they gave out massive no-bid contracts to Republican cronies like KBR. There was rank incompetence like the FEMA response to hurricane Katrina, led by a guy whose sole qualifications were running a horse breeding association (and raising a bunch of money for Republicans).
  
  Bush threw no bid contracts for new work at Halliburton, and it was a sketchy scandal that congress wasn't willing to prosecute, because republicans. Musk is outright stealing a contract from another vendor, while slandering them in the media.

Aaaannddd there it is… Certainly no conflicts of interest /s
- The attempt to sell Teslas to the military was definitely a conflict of interests as well.
- The concept of a conflict of interest only matters if American voters care , and they don't.

Musk doesn't care anymore if he tanks Tesla, as long as he's getting government handouts.
- Tesla’s shareholders might though.
  
  Good. Then the shareholders can sue and make things more difficult for everyone involved.
  
  Then don’t be a Tesla shareholder, fucking duh. Sell that shit, fuck this guy.
- He doesn't need the shares to be sky high if he can get the board to give him his giant payout.
  Tesla’s law firm drafts Delaware bill that could salvage Musk pay package
  The proposed legislation, drafted by Richards, Layton & Finger, or RLF, would amend Delaware General Corporation Law, and if adopted, could pave the way for the reinstatement of Musk’s 2018 CEO pay package at Tesla, worth tens of billions of dollars in options.

Yep. Never flying again.

So
replace wires with satellite
which can fail or be slow
just so musk can shut it off at a whim
This gonna be great, you guys.
- Sorry, all flights grounded because solar flares. At least we only lost 20 planes this time.
  Sorry, all flights grounded because some fuckwit decided to use satellites for a network instead of fiber underground and a bad actor jammed the radio spectrum.
  Sorry, all flights are grounded because Elmo Muskrat got in a pissy fit on Twitter with a 15 year old kid, and he showed him by shutting off the satellite network over the US. (Variation on your last bullet.)
- I came here to say this. This doesn't look like replacing the air controller work, it's about the comm network. And it's making it dependent on fucking micro satellites, holy dumb shovel buckets.
- Lets not forget delay issues. Something that could be very deadly in ATC.
- Yeah, it is in fact a terrible idea.

Some might think this is corruption, but I assure you, this was the best offer we could find, because all the others got lost somehow?
- Sounds like a real lack of efficiency
  
  It's super efficient to lose the papers of all but one applicant. Really speeds up those decision times.
  
  Nonono, Musk has already helped us with that. We are saving hundreds of dollars on wages, and only very few planes have crashed.

I hope Verizon sues Musk, Starlink, and the DOGE into oblivion. Even if they don’t have a chance of winning, they should be able to make it more difficult to do anything. Airlines should sue too due to the preventable crashes that occurred recently. In fact, I hope every company affected by DOGE’s policies sues.
They might not be able to get a fair trial, but they could potentially bog the system down in red tape.
Give ‘em Hell!
- Hoisted by their own petard, it seems. I'm with you. I hope they fight, but they also helped create this situation (like many corporations).
  https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/verizon-communications/summary?id=D000000079
  
  I don’t doubt it at all, but as the passage goes, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Or as I like to say: baby steps.
- Sadly you’re probably spot on. 😞

We call this a conflict of interest. Fuck Musk. Guess whose planes will never show up in flight logs so he, Trump, and all of Putin's other stooges can fly around and make deals with no bother.
- If the US does not accurately report flights, then the only solution is to cut it off from all international air travel. Any planes that would leave the US air space should be immediately forced to land or turn around by military aircraft in whichever airspace they enter.
- I bet this is definitely a contributing factor to his actions. Hard to fly a drone into his engine if you don't know which plane is his...

Oh, THERE it is. This is why Elump has allowed so many air traffic control issues recently. To set the stage for this bullshit.
Sorry, I’m kinda slow sometimes.
- "Allowed"? In what sense? Are you seriously suggesting Trump or Musk are responsible for a Delta crash in Canada, and helicopter collision and a Southwest go around?
  
  In the sense that the issue isn’t being addressed as quickly or as seriously as it should be. Cancelling a contract and awarding it to a company with zero experience is not the answer.

Of course 🙄

Creating problems to justify enriching themselves with private contracts... America, to the highest bidder

I would sure love to see the proof that "FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk." from a wholly independent authority.
A note written on a paper napkin won't do.

I have no love for Verizon but using starlink is the definition of a conflict of interest. I mean so has everything else he's been doing but this one is especially egregious.

An overhaul from the man who sells “full self driving”. What could possibly go wrong? 🙄

Um, I'd like to choose whatever the fuck might be behind door number 3. Even if it's murder hornets. As long as they are the data transmission sort of murder hornets.

Time to start shorting US airline stocks

Totally no conflict of interest with Musk getting all these contracts while being in the current administration.

Man for a bunch of rich assholes the GoP sure likes to shoot themselves in the foot.

I think he's still salty over the ElonJet account that still posts the publicly available ADS-B flight plans for his plane on Bluesky and Mastodon.

"This is your captain speaking. I'm afraid we're going to be a little bit delayed here because we've lost connection to the Starlink satellites that provide our communication. We'll be pushing back from the gate just as soon as the weather clears a bit."
- “We’ll be cleared to land just as soon as our check clears.”

I'm sure that will end well.

I'd say it's a good thing we have antitrust laws, but we all know how much laws mean to the group of mobsters currently in control.

Hmm, convenient.

I'm about to start demanding hazard pay from work when they need me to travel.

Today thousands of planes lost critical communications while in the US airspace after a SpaceX test flight exploded in low earth orbit. The explosion destroyed a significant portion of the Starlink satellite constellation, and international space tracking organizations are monitoring the situation closely. They are reporting a Kessler Syndrome cascade has not been ruled out.

Oh right here we go

Hats off to the people that still care enough to document this corruption. Hopefully someday (while Musk is still alive) the general public will care enough as well, so that there will be consequences.
- Oh, they definitely do... Both republican and Democrat representatives have basically stopped doing town hall meetings with their constituents because people just scream at them to stop Musk. There's frequent protests, fox news anchors are questioning what's going on with Musk - if there's anything almost everyone can agree on right now, it's "fuck Elon Musk"

Sold all my Rocket Lab shares last week because of shit like this.

Gross
- Very gross, in fact

68 comments