Nonprofit government watchdog group Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has asked the US Office of Inspector General (OIG) to investigate whether the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has engaged in “improper” business dealings with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
In an letter sent to Mitch Behm, the US Inspector General for the US Department of Transportation (DOT), which was made public on March 13, 2025, CLC noted that the FAA considered contracts with the company “in response to Musks’s requests”.
Musk currently holds two significant positions as a special government employee (‘SGE’) under the administration of US President Donald Trump, plus the CEO of Tesla, X, and SpaceX, a subsidiary of Starlink. This situation raises concerns about a potential conflict of interest in the awarding of certain government contracts.
The Campaign Legal Center letter stated that the evidence suggests that Musk “has blatantly and improperly influenced the FAA’s decision to work with Starlink”, and thus “may have violated the criminal conflict of interest law and corrupted FAA’s business relationship with Starlink.”.
On March 5, 2025, SpaceX denied recent allegations that the FAA might cancel a $2.4 billion contract with its current internet provider Verizon in favor of Starlink. However, SpaceX did mention on X that “Starlink is a possible partial fix to an aging system,” aligning with Musk’s earlier statements on the social media platform.
On February 25, 2025, Musk stated that “the Verizon system is not working and so is putting air travelers at serious risk”. Shortly after, he added that “the Verizon communication system to air traffic control is breaking down very rapidly.”
“With this authority and support, [Musk] has openly criticized the FAA’s contractors while directing the agency to test and use his company’s services,” the watchdog group concluded, adding that “these facts establish a possible criminal conflict of interest violation”.
