#Musk Is Positioned to Profit Off Billions in New Government Contracts
Within the #Trump admin’s #Defense Dept, #ElonMusk’s #SpaceX rocketry is being trumpeted as the nifty new way the #Pentagon could move #military cargo rapidly around the globe.
In the #Commerce Dept, SpaceX’s #Starlink satellite internet service will now be fully eligible for the federal govt’s $42B rural #broadband push, after being largely shut out during the #Biden era.
#kleptocracy #broligarchy
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/us/politics/spacex-contracts-musk-doge-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=E7E65CB6-8C02-416C-97B6-4C61119E4373
The New York Times · Musk’s SpaceX Could Secure Billions in New Contracts Under Trump
![Sub-heading and text:
Director of federal broadband program quits
The director of a massive Department of Commerce program to improve rural broadband access has quit the government over concerns that the agency would delay the initiative to lavish Starlink with federal funds. In a departure email last week, Evan Feinman, who led the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, directed his ire at Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “Stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so that we can make the world’s richest man even richer is yet another in a long line of betrayals by Washington,” he wrote. Feinman urged the Trump administration against changing BEAD “to benefit [satellite] technology that delivers slower speeds at higher costs to the household paying the bill.”
Lutnick recently said he would overturn BEAD guidelines prioritizing wired internet providers over satellite providers. But the change, according to Feinman, will lead to complications for multiple states on the verge of starting their BEAD-funded projects. “These more-sweeping changes will only cause delays,” he wrote. “Shovels could already be in the ground in three states, and they could be in the ground in half the country by the summer without the proposed changes to project selection.”](https://assets.newsie.social/media_attachments/files/114/207/685/993/738/557/original/ce003ef6b7af87c9.png "Sub-heading and text:
Director of federal broadband program quits
The director of a massive Department of Commerce program to improve rural broadband access has quit the government over concerns that the agency would delay the initiative to lavish Starlink with federal funds. In a departure email last week, Evan Feinman, who led the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, directed his ire at Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “Stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so that we can make the world’s richest man even richer is yet another in a long line of betrayals by Washington,” he wrote. Feinman urged the Trump administration against changing BEAD “to benefit [satellite] technology that delivers slower speeds at higher costs to the household paying the bill.”
Lutnick recently said he would overturn BEAD guidelines prioritizing wired internet providers over satellite providers. But the change, according to Feinman, will lead to complications for multiple states on the verge of starting their BEAD-funded projects. “These more-sweeping changes will only cause delays,” he wrote. “Shovels could already be in the ground in three states, and they could be in the ground in half the country by the summer without the proposed changes to project selection.”")
