Musk’s Starlink Gets Mad At The State Of Virginia For Refusing To Shower It With Broadband Subsidies It Doesn’t Deserve
from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept
There are $42.5 billion in broadband grants that are headed to the states thanks to the 2021 infrastructure bill most Republicans voted against (yet routinely try to take credit for among their constituents).
But Republicans, despite a supposed feud between Trump and Elon Musk, have been rewriting the grant program’s guidance to eliminate provisions ensuring the resulting broadband is affordable to poor people, and to ensure that Elon Musk gets billions in new broadband subsidies for his expensive and increasingly congested satellite broadband company, Starlink.
The rewrites delayed the underlying grant program, forcing many states to revamp their plans for the already earmarked funds. That includes states like Virginia, which recently tried to finalize their plans to spend $1.48 billion on faster, better broadband across the state. But they immediately ran into complaints by Elon Musk’s Starlink for not giving Elon Musk enough subsidies:
“The Virginia plan “represents a massive waste of federal taxpayer money, reverting to the Biden Administration’s failed approach to BEAD and completely disregarding the Trump Administration’s effort to restructure the program to accelerate broadband deployment and reduce spending,” SpaceX alleged. “Simply put, Virginia has put its heavy thumb on the scale in favor of expensive, slow-to-build fiber bias over speedy, low-cost, and technology neutral competition.”
Ideally, you want to spend most of taxpayer-funded broadband grant money on high capacity, future-proof, fiber optic broadband. From there, you want to fill in many of the remaining gaps with 5G cellular and fixed wireless. After that, you can fill in any remaining gaps with Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband services, which generally lack the capacity to be anything more than a niche player.
Musk and Republicans are demanding that states reverse that order, prioritizing Starlink service. The argument is that Starlink is cheaper to deploy than fiber.
And while technically true, Starlink has a long list of caveats. It’s often too expensive for users most in need of affordable broadband. The network is congested and can’t really handle a massive influx of users. It also harms the ozone layer and astronomy research. It’s not entirely guaranteed the service will even exist in ten years, making Starlink only “cheaper” if you ignore objective reality.
This is all before you get to the fact that the company is run by an overt white supremacist asshole.
Because they want more taxpayer subsidies, Starlink and SpaceX are urging the NTIA to reject Virginia’s latest plan. States now have to risk potentially losing out on billions in historic broadband grants if they fail to pander to Elon Musk, or dare to include provisions that actually try to ensure the resulting broadband access is affordable and evenly deployed to marginalized communities.
That means not only more expensive and less reliable broadband, but it means redirecting a lot of taxpayer money away from things like open access community-owned broadband and cooperatives, and toward a less reliable, more expensive, more congested alternative. All so the country’s richest man (who pretends to hate subsidies) can get even richer on the taxpayer dime.
This is going to be playing out in every state in the country over the next six months, and obviously the Republican states are going to be more likely to sell out their own constituents in order to make Elon Musk happy. But Democratic states may also be quick to fold on issues like Starlink subsidies and affordability provisions for fear of incurring Trump administration ire.
This pandering to Elon Musk is causing significant new delays in broadband deployments in a program Republicans complained during election season was taking too long to deploy broadband.
When Starlink inevitably struggles to handle the influx of new subsidized users and overcharges rural Americans for service, Republicans, as per tradition, will be nowhere to be found. And because a core component of the second Trump term is destroying all functional federal regulators, nobody will be able to hold Starlink accountable when that inevitable disappointment comes.
Filed Under: bead, billionaires, broadband, broadband equity access and deployment, donald trump, elon musk, leo, low earth orbit, ntia, satellite, subsidies, virginia
Companies: spacex, starlink
Comments on “Musk’s Starlink Gets Mad At The State Of Virginia For Refusing To Shower It With Broadband Subsidies It Doesn’t Deserve”
Out of curiosity, has Starlink really got any public money so far (not counting some few cracked subscribers like the White House)?
Not that Musk is always complaining for nothing but he’s making a lot of fuzz for only few billions.
Fiber
I live in a rural area of Virginia, where the only available broadband was through a 5G hotspot, and it wasn’t the best speed. I was considering Starlink when it first was made available because it seemed like a better option. But when Covid happened my county took advantage of a grant program and wired the entire county for fiber. Now I’ll never go for it.
typical sh**
Everything Musk touches turns to 💩
Not only is Musk, himself, a massive waste, but his DOGE was also massive waste while ostensibly looking for waste. Simply put, Musk is waste and he lives in waste. Waste is his normal, and anything normal, he perceives as waste.
So basically Nazi Musk wants taxpayer money siphoned to his companies with no strings attached and the govt is happy to oblige.
When and if there is any auditing of govt expenditures in the future this administration will be known as the largest transfer of public, taxpayer money to private entities ever seen. Corruption is rampant. And those who can do anything are doing nothing, being complicit.
Re:
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
Musk earnestly believes that all wealth is his by birthright. As far as Musk is concerned, Virginia is denying him his birthright by spending money and not giving it to him.
Re:
All the watchdogs were fired and replaced by Trump MAGA minions.
Re:
He want it siphoned to his companies for something he can never deliver. It’s physically impossible.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, shedding tears because Virginia didn’t top off his piggy bank with another billion? Tragic. Imagine being worth $200B and still throwing a tantrum over not getting free money. Maybe one day he’ll outgrow his spoiled-brat phase. Not holding my breath though
'Sure thing, let's just check how your current service looks like- ooh, not good.'
But Republicans, despite a supposed feud between Trump and Elon Musk,
What someone says tells you what they want you to think is true.
What someone does shows you what is true.
The fact that even now republicans are bending over backwards to shovel as much money as possible into Elon’s pockets reveals that the whole ‘feud’ between him and Trump was and is nothing but play-acting to pander to the idiots.
If virginia and other states want to twist the knife here they can do what states should have been doing this entire time: Tell Elon that going forward all broadband subsidies will be treated as refunds, where a company has to spend their own money to roll out service and only after they can demonstrate that it’s in place and working will they get a full refund from the state for work done.
No more ‘pay us now and we pinky-promise we’ll uphold our end of the deal’ treatment for companies, either companies fulfill their half of the deal or they’re left on the hook for the entire cost, giving them all the incentive to actually do what they claim they will rather than just take the money and siphon it directly into exec bonuses.
West Virginia appears to be following a similar path now…
https://broadbandbreakfast.com/is-elon-musk-ready-to-go-to-war-with-his-third-gop-governor-over-bead
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/starlink-wants-billions-in-grants-but-state-governments-arent-cooperating