Three top Democratic senators are demanding a criminal conflict-of-interest investigation into Elon Musk's involvement in a reported plan to award one of his companies a juicy contract with the Federal Aviation Administration.
Multiple outlets reported over the past few weeks that the FAA is planning to cancel a $2.4 billion deal with Verizon to upgrade America's air traffic control systems and award the project instead to Musk's satellite internet business Starlink.
Sources told Rolling Stone that FAA officials had been verbally ordered to begin finding money for a Starlink deal, while The Washington Post reported that employees from Starlink's parent company SpaceX are already working at the agency.
An engineer employed by Musk’s SpaceX, who also works as a “volunteer” at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has already reported in a post on X that he has been using the company’s Starlink to overhaul FAA systems.
SpaceX engineer Ted Malaska last month instructed employees at the FAA headquarters in Washington, D.C. to “immediately start work on a program to deploy thousands of the company’s Starlink satellite terminals to support the national airspace system,” reported Bloomberg News .
He warned FAA workers that they risked losing their jobs if they did anything to “impede” the work, according to Bloomberg .
Musk has the power to create a hole in federal agencies with firings and contract cuts that could require private companies like his to step in to do the work in new taxpayer-funded deals.
Now Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), and Chris Van Hollen (Maryland) have written to Trump's attorney general Pam Bondi demanding a corruption probe into the alleged pending deal.
"We ask that the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General and the Department of Justice investigate the scope of Mr Musk’s activities at the FAA," the letter said, according to The Guardian.
It said the investigation must find out whether Musk, "in his capacity as a special government employee in the White House … has participated in any particular matter in which he has a financial interest, which would violate the criminal conflict-of-interest statute."
SpaceX has insisted that it has no intent to usurp existing contracts, and that "recent media reports about SpaceX and the FAA are false".
Recent media reports about SpaceX and the FAA are false.
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 5, 2025
SpaceX is working in coordination with @L3HarrisTech—the prime contractor for the FAA’s telecommunications infrastructure— and the @FAANews to test the use of @Starlink as one piece of the infrastructure upgrades so badly…
"Starlink is a possible partial fix to an aging system. There is no effort or intent for Starlink to 'take over' any existing contract — that’s just FUD [Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt]," the company said on X on March 5.
Musk also claimed on his own X account that Starlink terminals were being sent to the FAA "at NO COST to the taxpayer" and "on an emergency basis.”
Nevertheless, he has twice inveighed against the Verizon contract — falsely, since that contract has not actually started yet.
"The Verizon system is not working and so is putting air travelers at serious risk," he railed on February 27.
The Verizon system is not working and so is putting air travelers at serious risk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2025
A few days later he claimed that the system was "breaking down very rapidly" and was close to "catastrophic failure,” before correcting himself to note that he was talking about an old system that had nothing to do with Verizon.
Musk has overseen slash-and-burn budget cuts and mass firings at multiple government agencies in his capacity as the de facto head of DOGE (though White House lawyers have bizarrely claimed he is not in charge). He has the power to cut public jobs so dramatically to require the hiring of private enterprises to fill the gaps and do essential work.
In another letter to Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles, the three Democrats — plus Oregon senator Jeff Merkley and Maryland representative Jamie Raskin — said the Trump administration had cut, limited, or sought to exert control over at least 11 agencies that are investigating Musk's companies.
Trump himself has claimed that Musk would not be permitted to make governmental decisions about areas where he has a conflict of interest.
But last week, with protests and boycotts against Musk's electric car company Tesla growing across the world, the president chose to turn the White House lawn into a bizarre advertisement for Tesla's vehicles.
"It’s a great product," Trump claimed as he showed off a cherry-red Tesla sedan. He also indicated that anyone who vandalizes Teslas would be treated as a domestic terrorist.
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