Let's not mince words here: We're watching a goddamn corporate coup unfold in real-time, and somehow everyone's just sitting around with their thumbs up their asses pretending this is business as usual. It's not. When the world's richest man—who happens to have a direct line to the President and an official position "cutting government waste"—suddenly declares that a competitor's $2.4 billion contract is failing and, oh hey, his company should take it over instead? That's not capitalism. That's not innovation. That's straight-up corporate feudalism.

UPDATE: SEE BOTTOM

And make no mistake, the stakes couldn't be higher. We're talking about the communication system that ensures planes don't crash into each other. You know, minor stuff.

The whole thing stinks to high heaven. Musk has declared—with his typical flair for understated modesty—that the FAA's communications system is on the verge of "catastrophic failure" that could happen "within months." Holy shit, that sounds terrifying! Planes falling from the sky! Mass casualties! Chaos!

Except... where's the evidence? Where are the independent aviation experts backing up this claim? Where are the whistleblowers from within the FAA or Verizon screaming that we're all doomed? They don't exist.

What we have instead is the word of a man who stands to make billions if people believe him. The same man who promised self-driving cars by 2017, a million robotaxis by 2020, and that his brain chips would cure paralysis by now. The same man who swore Twitter—sorry, "X"—would be profitable by 2023. The same man who said the Cybertruck was bulletproof, right before its windows shattered during the demo.

His track record on predictions is, to put it mildly, fucking abysmal.

Yet here we are, with the FAA apparently ready to throw away years of procurement processes and a contracted solution from Verizon—a company that, whatever its faults, actually has experience building telecommunications infrastructure across America—in favor of the shiny new toy from Tech Billionaire Messiah.

Let's be crystal clear about what's happening: Elon Musk is serving in an official government role where he's supposed to identify wasteful spending. He has identified as "wasteful" a contract held by a competitor to his own company. And now he's positioning his company to take over that contract.

If that doesn't make your blood boil, you're not paying attention.

Imagine if the Secretary of Defense owned a major weapons manufacturer. Or if the FDA commissioner owned pharmaceutical stocks in companies he was regulating. People would lose their damn minds—and rightfully so! Yet somehow, when it's Musk, we're all supposed to nod along like this is perfectly normal.

It's not normal. It's corrupt. It's a textbook definition of a conflict of interest that would get anyone else immediately fired and possibly investigated.

The most infuriating part is how blatant it is. There's not even an attempt to hide the self-dealing. Musk literally tweeted about how terrible Verizon's solution is and how his company should take over. He's not even trying to be subtle about it! It's like watching a bank robber stroll into a police station covered in money and security dye, then asking for directions to the highway.

If the FAA actually goes through with canceling Verizon's contract to hand it over to SpaceX, the legal shitstorm that follows will be spectacular. Government contracts don't work like Musk's Twitter DMs—you can't just decide on a whim to tear them up.

Verizon will sue. They'll sue hard. And they'll have a damn good case.

Federal procurement has rules specifically designed to prevent exactly this kind of self-dealing. The process for awarding a $2.4 billion contract is rigorous, complex, and designed with multiple safeguards. Companies spend millions just preparing their bids. The evaluation process takes months or years. Contracts like this aren't awarded by having the Transportation Secretary slide into your DMs saying "hey bro, wanna remake our airspace?"

Yet that's exactly what's happening. As reported, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has discussed with Musk plans to "remake our airspace" quickly. What the actual fuck does that even mean? And why is the Transportation Secretary having these discussions with someone whose company stands to profit from the decisions?

If the contract is canceled without proper cause, taxpayers could be on the hook for massive penalties to Verizon—likely hundreds of millions of dollars—and then still have to pay billions to SpaceX for the replacement system. It's not cost-cutting; it's cost-shifting to a company owned by a friend of the administration.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this entire affair is how Musk is leveraging legitimate public concern about air safety to advance his corporate interests.

Yes, there have been several high-profile aviation incidents recently. The Boeing door blowout. The near-misses on runways. The turbulence injuries. People are understandably anxious about flying.

But none—zero, zilch, nada—of these incidents have been linked to Verizon's communication systems. Not a single one. Musk is exploiting public fear to create a problem that his company can conveniently solve.

It's disaster capitalism 101: Create or exaggerate a crisis, then position yourself as the only possible savior. It's what he did with Twitter ("freedom of speech is dying!"), with Tesla ("climate change is existential!"), and now with air traffic control ("the system is about to collapse!").

The real safety discussion we should be having is whether we want our critical national infrastructure—the systems that keep planes from colliding—dependent on satellites owned by a single private company controlled by a single mercurial billionaire. What happens when Musk decides air traffic control isn't profitable enough? What happens if SpaceX goes bankrupt? What happens if Musk throws a tantrum and threatens to shut it down, as he's done with other services he controls?

These aren't hypothetical concerns. This is a man who has publicly feuded with governments, terminated services to regions he's angry with, and repeatedly shown his willingness to use his companies as extensions of his personal whims.

And where is the media in all this? Mostly reprinting Musk's tweets as if they're verified facts rather than the self-interested claims of someone with billions at stake.

The headline should be: "Billionaire With Government Role Attempts to Redirect $2.4 Billion Contract to His Own Company." Instead, we get: "Musk Warns of Critical FAA System Failure."

This isn't journalism; it's stenography for the wealthy. And it's dangerous as hell because it helps normalize what should be viewed as an outrageous breach of public trust.

The Washington Post was one of the few outlets to actually point out the glaring conflict of interest here. The rest of the media landscape seems perfectly content to treat Musk's claims with unearned credibility, as if he were an objective expert rather than the most financially conflicted person possible on this topic.

If Musk gets away with this—if he successfully leverages his government position to cancel a competitor's contract and redirect billions to his own company—the precedent it sets is horrifying.

It tells every wealthy business owner with political connections that the old rules don't apply anymore. Forget competitive bidding. Forget conflict of interest laws. Forget the entire legal framework designed to ensure government contracts are awarded fairly.

The new rule would be simple: Get appointed to a government position, declare your competitors' products failures, and redirect their contracts to yourself. It's corruption so basic it wouldn't pass muster in a banana republic, yet here we are, watching it unfold in what's supposed to be the most advanced democracy on Earth.

This goes beyond partisan politics. Whether you love or hate the current administration, allowing this kind of naked self-dealing sets a precedent that will transcend any single presidency. Once we allow the guardrails to be removed, they won't magically reappear when someone new takes office.

The fix here is so obvious it's almost insulting to have to spell it out:

It's not rocket science (though ironically, Musk might prefer if it were—at least then SpaceX would have a legitimate reason to be involved).

Instead, what we're likely to see is a rushed cancellation of Verizon's contract, followed by a no-bid award to SpaceX, followed by years of litigation that will cost taxpayers billions while our air traffic system remains in limbo.

The saddest part of this entire sordid affair is how effectively Musk manipulates public opinion. His fans—and there are millions—will defend literally anything he does as genius innovation rather than recognizing it for what it is: old-fashioned corruption with a high-tech veneer.

They'll flood comment sections with arguments about how Starlink is superior technology (maybe it is, maybe it isn't—that's what proper procurement processes determine). They'll claim he's saving taxpayer money (he's not—canceling contracts costs a fortune). They'll insist he's the only one who can fix the problem (he isn't—the telecommunications industry is filled with companies with far more experience in this exact domain).

What they won't address is the fundamental issue: The richest man in America is using his government position to enrich himself by billions of dollars.

Because when you strip away all the technobabble and the personality cult and the tweets, that's what this comes down to. It's the oldest story in politics: a powerful person using their influence to direct public money into their own pocket.

We're at a pivotal moment where we decide what kind of country we want to be. Do we want a system where government contracts are awarded through established processes designed to ensure fairness, quality, and value for taxpayers? Or do we want a system where the friends of those in power can simply declare their competitors' products failures and take over billion-dollar contracts for themselves?

Do we want a country where conflict of interest laws mean something? Or do we want one where the wealthy and connected can ignore them with impunity?

Do we want critical infrastructure decisions made based on expert evaluation and evidence? Or do we want them made based on who has the President's ear and the most compelling Twitter presence?

The answers should be obvious. The fact that they apparently aren't—the fact that this is happening in broad daylight with minimal outrage—shows just how far we've fallen.

So the next time you board a plane and look out the window, remember: The system keeping you from colliding with other aircraft may soon be controlled by a man who thought it was a good idea to smoke weed on Joe Rogan's podcast and who named his child using a keyboard smash. And he got that control not because his system was proven better through fair evaluation, but because he had friends in high places and wasn't afraid to use them.

SpaceX boss Elon Musk had to backpedal his trash-talking about the FAA's decrepit system on Thursday, after finding out he'd blamed the wrong damn company. Turns out Verizon wasn't the culprit behind that crappy software. Musk actually had to issue a damn correction after Verizon called him out on his bullshit.

"Correction: the ancient piece of crap system that's going to hell was made by L3Harris," Musk posted on X. "The new system that isn't fucking working yet is from Verizon."