FAA reportedly ordered staff to find millions of dollars to fund Starlink deal

According to Rolling Stone, employees with the Federal Aviation Administration were told connected Friday to “begin uncovering tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal,” aft The Washington Post reported that the FAA whitethorn cancel its $2.4 cardinal declaration with Verizon to overhaul the US’s airspace absorption systems and spell with Elon Musk’s institution instead. Whether the FAA has really dropped its Verizon woody successful favour of Starlink has yet to beryllium confirmed publicly.

Anonymous sources told Rolling Stone that the orders from FAA officials connected Friday were “delivered verbally” to staff, successful an “unusual” move. It comes a fewer days aft Musk claimed connected X that the concern astir aerial postulation power communications is “extremely dire,” saying the existing strategy (which helium wrongly attributed to Verizon earlier aboriginal adding a correction) is “breaking down precise rapidly.” He went connected to accidental that “Starlink terminals are being sent astatine NO COST to the payer connected an exigency ground to reconstruct aerial postulation power connectivity.”

Bloomberg, citing sources adjacent to the matter, antecedently reported that 4,000 Starlink terminals were being sent to assistance upgrade the FAA’s networks, which the FAA confirmed. In a connection posted connected X successful effect past week, the FAA claimed it’s “been considering the usage of Starlink since the anterior administration.” As precocious arsenic Wednesday, though, the FAA said successful statements to The Washington Post and different publications that it had not made a determination astir its Verizon deal.

The bureau is 1 of galore that has been deed by layoffs led by Musk’s DOGE implicit the past fewer weeks, with hundreds of FAA employees fired successful February.