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transportation department
Calls Grow for Federal Probe Into Possible 'Criminal' Musk Corruption at Aviation Agency
"The public has a right to know that their tax dollars are being spent in the public's best interest and not to benefit a government employee's financial interests," according to a recent ethics complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center.
Mar 17, 2025
The drum beat for a federal probe into whether billionaire and GOP donor Elon Musk violated conflict of interest law through his dealings with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is growing louder following reporting that technology from Musk's Starlink, the satellite network developed by its company SpaceX, will be involved in upgrading the FAA air traffic control system.
On Monday, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Acting Inspector General at the Transportation Department, Mitch Behm, demanding an investigation into whether Musk's activities at the FAA have violated the criminal conflict of interest statute. The letter was first reported by The Guardian on Monday.
"We are concerned that Musk... may be using his government role to benefit his own private company," the senators wrote.
The letter, sent by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) cites coverage from The Washington Post, which in late February reported that the FAA was considering canceling a $2.4 billion Verizon contract to upgrade the FAA's communication system "that serves as the backbone of the nation's air traffic control system" and award the work to Starlink, citing unnamed sources.
The letter follows an ethics complaint, filed last week by the nonpartisan legal group Campaign Legal Center (CLC) to Behm, also asking for an investigation into whether the FAA's business transactions with Starlink "are improper due to violations of the criminal conflict of interest law."
Both the letter from the Democratic senators and the CLC complaint cite a section of federal statute that prohibits government employees—including special government employees, which is Musk's designation—from "participat[ing] personally and substantially" in any "particular matter[s]" in which the employee, their spouse, their companies, or other business partners have any "financial interest."
"Public reports establish that the FAA began using Starlink services and considering contracts with the company in response to Musk's requests," according to the letter from CLC. "The public has a right to know that their tax dollars are being spent in the public's best interest and not to benefit a government employee's financial interests."
In early February, Musk—who has been deputized by U.S. President Trump to pursue cuts to government spending and personnel—said that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency(DOGE) will "aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system."
According to Bloomberg, a SpaceX engineer arrived at the FAA headquarters in late February to "deliver what he described as a directive from his boss Elon Musk: The agency will immediately start work on a program to deploy thousands of the company's Starlink satellite terminals to support the national airspace system."
"There is no effort or intent for Starlink to 'take over' any existing contract," SpaceX wrote on X in early March. The company said it is working in coordination with another prime contractor for the FAA's telecommunications infrastructure "to test the use of Starlink as one piece of the infrastructure upgrades so badly needed along with fiber, wireless, and other technologies."
Per Bloomberg, the FAA is already testing or actively using multiple Starlink terminals.
The CLC letter argues that reporting provides evidence that "the FAA's business relationship with Starlink is tainted by Musk's influence. Musk is a government official with broad authority who acts with direct support from the president. With this authority and support, he has openly criticized the FAA's contractors while directing the agency to test and use his company's services."
This "establish[es] a possible criminal conflict of interest violation, and an [Office of Inspector General] investigation is needed to determine whether the facts constitute a legal violation," per the CLC letter.
The requests to probe Musk's business connections to the FAA come as the U.S. has dealt with a series of plane crashes and accidents, which in some cases have been deadly, and has invited scrutiny of the country's air traffic control system.
John P. Pelissero, the director of a government ethics program at Santa Clara University, told the Post that it appears that "because of Musk's current position in DOGE and his closeness to Trump he and his company are getting an advantage and getting a contract," speaking of the potential Verizon contract cancellation.
"Who's looking out for the public interest here when you get the person who's cutting budgets and personnel from the FAA, suddenly trying to benefit from still another government contract?" Pelissero said, according to the Post.
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As Biden Takes On Airline Junk Fees, It's Worth Asking Why Buttigieg Didn't
Buttigieg not only could have addressed this years ago, not only should have, but was explicitly directed by Congress to do so.
Feb 24, 2023
The Biden White House ushered in February with a new salvo of regulation targeting junk fees — those really annoying surcharges that don’t accomplish anything other than making the corporations more money. One particularly cruel example being targeted is a practice of airlines charging parents extra to be seated with their children. President Biden doubled down on the issue in his State of the Union address as well, saying that “airlines can’t treat your child like a piece of baggage.” Some airlines would charge customers to sit next to their children who were still in diapers.
Already, President Biden’s efforts are seeing results; United announced this week that it would no longer charge families extra to sit with their children. While this is certainly a welcome development, it is also an extremely overdue one. Secretary Pete Buttigieg not only could have addressed this years ago, not only should have, but was explicitly directed by Congress to do so. Banning these kinds of abusive business practices is unquestionably a good thing, but asking why it took so long is also imperative to holding the government responsible for fulfilling its most basic duty: protecting the citizens it was designed to serve, especially those who are most vulnerable to the ploys of powerful elites.
A 2020 Consumer Reports investigation found that children as young as one year old were being forced to sit alone on flights, even long ones, if their parents or guardians couldn’t pay the fees to keep families together. This is obviously immoral and dangerous for young children, especially those with medical conditions that require specialized attention, like autism, or who are simply too young to be in a new, loud, and uncomfortable experience without a trusted guardian. Kids need care, and it shouldn’t be up to the kindness of strangers to provide it. Where most of us see a moral prerogative, airlines see a money-making opportunity.
Congress agreed years ago that these fees should be banned. In 2016, the FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act included language directing the Secretary of Transportation to move to prohibit them. Elaine Chao, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Transportation and vehement deregulator, unsurprisingly, never used her authority to spare families from these outrageous fees.
(Last autumn, when reached for comment on airline regulation, DOT’s spokesperson denied that such instruction was ever provided. However, the FAA Extension Act section 2309 says “DOT shall review and, if appropriate, establish a policy to require all air carriers to establish a policy that enables a child, age 13 or under on a scheduled flight, to be seated in a seat adjacent to the seat of an accompanying family member over age 13, except when assignment to an adjacent seat would require an upgrade to another cabin class or a seat with extra legroom or seat pitch for an additional charge.” So, DOT’s spokesperson is correct only if the department believes keeping children safe on flights is not “appropriate.”)
One would expect an ambitious Democrat trying to burnish a public image as a detail-oriented, empathetic politician would leap at this opportunity. But Buttigieg did not prohibit these family separation fees. In the fall, DOT announced it would begin a new rulemaking process around fee transparency, which doesn’t address the core of the problem—that these fees should not be allowed at all.
In response to a question about why Buttigieg did not initiate a rulemaking to block these fees, DOT’s spokesperson said:
Rulemaking can be lengthy so DOT is working to secure better service from airlines right now – while also preserving rulemaking as an option. Under Sec. Buttigieg, DOT issued for the first time a notice urging airlines to do everything that they can to enable young children to be seated next to an accompanying adult at no additional cost. The notice provided airlines a four month period to improve and make changes to their policies and warned that the DOT would take additional action if its review, which is currently underway, reveals that airlines’ seating policies and practices are barriers to a child sitting next to a parent or other adult family member.
The spokesperson provided no explanation for why the existing measures and rulemaking could not have been done concurrently. Also, note that Buttigieg “urged” airlines, not “required”. That’s because, absent an actual rule, he lacks the authority to force the airlines’ hands. Plus, those “additional actions” that might be taken are probably rulemaking. The upshot of this entire argument is that Buttigieg delayed creating a rule to block exploitative fees that target children in an attempt to play nice with CEOs. It was a waste of nearly two years of opportunity.
Interestingly, though, this exact rulemaking is one of the things that the White House’s fact sheet announced. So, because of inaction at DOT, a rule that could have been finalized in the next couple of months will instead take until next year, quite possibly after the 2024 elections. Worse, it is entirely plausible that such a rule cannot be finalized until after the winner of the 2024 presidential election is inaugurated. If Democrats lose, this rule could be scrapped before it ever hits the books. Maybe Republicans would see it through, but their last transportation secretary refused to implement the reform called for by Congress in 2016, which is why it fell on Secretary Buttigieg’s shoulders in the first place.
One possible explanation is that DOT is simply understaffed; according to Buttigieg, the airline consumer protection staff has only thirty people to regulate the entire industry. That is certainly a serious issue that should be addressed this year when Congress takes up FAA reauthorization. However, given that a rulemaking will be required anyway, it seems like the end result of the DOT’s plodding approach was just to make more work for that small staff.
The fact that this is coming from the White House is also telling. President Biden did not need to give Buttigieg the authority to start this rulemaking. This could have come straight from DOT’s Office of the Secretary, but it didn’t. Some of that might be related to Buttigieg’s apparent distaste for fighting major airlines. This way, the trade associations and lobbyists are up in arms at the entire administration and not Secretary Pete personally. Intentional or not, it certainly provides a degree of political cover.
Still, Buttigieg was probably heavily involved in the decision to begin the new rulemaking, which will take meaningful action to protect consumers. He deserves some kudos for good work there. But you can’t turn in good work two years late and still expect full marks.
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'They Are Just Mocking Pete Buttigieg': Southwest Promotes Executives After Historic Meltdown
"That's the behavior of a company with no intention of changing course from management decisions that seek to enrich shareholders while leaving consumers holding the bag."
Jan 11, 2023
After canceling nearly 17,000 flights around the Christmas holiday—the worst customer service meltdown in the history of the U.S. airline industry—Southwest announced this week that it is promoting several of its executives, a move that watchdogs decried as a slap in the face of the travelers impacted by the company's incompetence and greed.
In a press release, Southwest said it is elevating five executives across different departments at the company, including network operations control and communications. The announcement came just over a week after the Southwest pilots' union published a scathing letter calling the corporation's management a "headquarters-centric cult" that has "eroded our company from within."
While Southwest said the new leadership changes "represent phase two of the organizational structure work that began in September 2022," critics argued the decision to go ahead with the promotions following the holiday debacle shows a total disregard for customers and U.S. regulators, who have been accused of doing far too little to crack down on industry abuses.
"Southwest thought its executives deserved a promotion after leaving thousands of its consumers in the lurch in the middle of peak holiday season travel," Liz Zelnick, director of the Economic Security and Corporate Power program at Accountable.US, said in a statement Tuesday. "That's the behavior of a company with no intention of changing course from management decisions that seek to enrich shareholders while leaving consumers holding the bag. We hope that Congress investigates their failures and holds their executives accountable."
Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote in response to the promotions: "They are just mocking Pete Buttigieg. And why shouldn't they?"
Buttigieg, the head of the U.S. Transportation Department, has faced growing backlash from airline watchdogs and members of his own party in recent days for failing to take decisive action in the lead-up to and in the wake of Southwest's mass cancellations, which pilots and flight attendants say were fueled by the company's refusal to invest in technological upgrades that could have helped the airline giant navigate bad weather and predictable holiday travel chaos.
In recent years, as flight crews pressed for changes to the company's antiquated technology, spent nearly $6 billion buying back its own stock.
"Pete Buttigieg chose to let nearly every domestic airline off scot-free after they were caught completely flat-footed earlier this year," said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, referring to cancellations surrounding the July 4 holiday. "Despite rampant cancellations and widespread violation of federal law by giving travel vouchers instead of cash refunds, the only domestic airline to face any regulatory scrutiny was the small, politically weak Frontier."
"That is despite the fact that Frontier was responsible for far less of the industry-wide meltdown than major players like United or Southwest," Hauser continued. "Every other U.S.-based airline got off with a warning and promised to do better in the future. When you don't actually enforce the law, you lose credibility as a regulator. Our position is simple: when corporations violate federal law, they should be investigated and held accountable."
"When you don't actually enforce the law, you lose credibility as a regulator."
While the Transportation Department has said it is investigating the latest round of mass cancellations and acting on the flurry of refund complaints from Southwest customers whose travel plans were thrown into chaos, lawmakers and advocates argue the agency's actions thus far have fallen far short of what's needed to hold the company accountable and prevent future disasters.
"In light of the sheer magnitude of Southwest Airlines' most recent operational failures and the devastating impact these failures and other airline cancellations continue to have on American consumers, we believe much more needs to be done," 26 Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to Buttigieg last week.
"Refunds and other types of compensation policies quickly become meaningless if there's not a clear mechanism or platform for passenger redress. Ensuring passengers and airlines can effectively communicate with one another will allow passengers
to swiftly receive any owed compensation as well as any other helpful information a passenger may need after a canceled or significantly delayed flight," the lawmakers wrote. "Furthermore, the Department should make sure that airlines are able to maintain a reasonable level of operational capabilities in the event of extreme weather or other type of potential disruption. Of course, not all
disruptions can be controlled. But issuing rules and standards that could help limit or prevent future cancellations and delays arising from these initial disruptions will ultimately benefit consumers much more than any reimbursement policy ever could."
William J. McGee, a senior fellow for aviation at American Economic Liberties Project, wrote in an NBC News op-ed earlier this month that "America's commercial aviation system is broken, but so is the only regulatory agency allowed to oversee it."
"Consider what we've seen from the federal government since Covid hit," McGee wrote. "For starters, airlines withheld at least $10 billion in unpaid refunds and unused flight credits after the pandemic forced people not to fly in 2020 and beyond. In November, Secretary Pete Buttigieg finally imposed what he termed 'historic' fines. But only Frontier and five small foreign carriers were penalized."
"Then, the first half of 2022 had an unprecedented number of delayed and canceled flights, more than in all of 2021," he continued. "Despite warnings from lawmakers and groups like my organization, the American Economic Liberties Project, Buttigieg assured passengers in September that the airlines would address their scheduling problems. Unfortunately, he didn't use his authority under the Transportation Department's unfair and deceptive acts rule to investigate why tens of thousands of flights were scheduled and then paid for by consumers, only to be canceled."
"Worse," McGee added, "there have been no reported penalties for the cancellations. This lack of enforcement may have contributed to Southwest's Christmas meltdown, because it's unlikely Southwest and other airlines would have stranded so many passengers if they feared real consequences."
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