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 on Friday to “begin finding tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal,” after The Washington Post reported that the FAA may cancel its $2.4 billion contract with Verizon to overhaul the US’s airspace management systems and go with Elon Musk’s company instead. Whether the FAA has actually dropped its Verizon deal in favor of Starlink has yet to be confirmed publicly.

Anonymous sources told Rolling Stone that the orders from FAA officials on Friday were “delivered verbally” to staff, in an “unusual” move. It comes a few days after Musk claimed on X that the situation around air traffic control communications is “extremely dire,” saying the existing system (which he wrongly attributed to Verizon before later adding a correction) is “breaking down very rapidly.” He went on to say that “Starlink terminals are being sent at NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity.”

Bloomberg, citing sources close to the matter, previously reported that 4,000 Starlink terminals were being sent to help upgrade the FAA’s networks, which the FAA confirmed. In a statement posted on X in response last week, the FAA claimed it’s “been considering the use of Starlink since the prior administration.” As recently as Wednesday, though, the FAA said in statements to The Washington Post and other publications that it had not made a decision about its Verizon deal.

The agency is one of many that has been hit by layoffs led by Musk’s DOGE over the last few weeks, with hundreds of FAA employees fired in February.