[blackeyeblitzar]

Yep obviously Verizon is a bloated company with zero innovation and no particular experience relevant to the FAA. Meanwhile SpaceX has experience in software, hardware, telecom, and flight. I trust them more with modernizing the FAA.

There’s also very little information on who else bid for this contract that Verizon got. How do we know it wasn’t corrupt to begin with, especially with Biden engaging in lawfare against Musk and doing bizarre things like excluding him from EV summits? The entire FAA modernization plan looks corrupt - everyone else that got contracts are random unknown companies. I bet they have ties back to some congressman.

[Volundr]

> How do we know it wasn’t corrupt to begin with

If we think that, isn't the solution to reopen the bidding with more transparency, rather than hand it to the guy who just so happens to both be in charge of the team pushing for this and owns the company the new contract is awarded to?

Your replacing "maybe this was corrupt", with 'this is blatantly and obviously corrupt"

[blackeyeblitzar]

It’s not blatantly or obviously corrupt. It is very likely to be better for taxpayers.

[Volundr]

I can't think of anything much more corrupt than someone in government directing a government contract to a vendor they own with no process for considering other vendors. If that seems fine to you, then I don't think we'll ever agree on what corruption looks like.

If Starlink is actually "very likely to be better for taxpayers" it should have no problem going through the normal bidding process competing with other vendors.

[buttercraft]

Good God, it's a textbook example of corruption!