Elon Musk Is Already Using His New Power to Make Himself Even Richer

As he works to slash millions in federal spending, Elon Musk is boosting his own company through yet another government contract, this time at the disaster-ridden Federal Aviation Administration.

Following a number of high-profile plane crashes—including the first fatal crash involving a commercial airliner in over a decade—the FAA agreed to use Musk’s Starlink internet terminals to help manage U.S. airspace.

Three terminals are already being tested in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and at two separate sites in Alaska, according to an FAA post on X, which Musk also owns.

“Alaska has long had issues with reliable weather information for the aviation community. The 2024 FAA reauthorization required the FAA to fix telecommunications connections to fix those needs,” the post reads.

Starlink will eventually deploy 4,000 terminals across the country over the course of 12 to 18 months.

The contract announcement, first reported by Bloomberg, comes just days after Musk fired hundreds of FAA employees as part of his government-wide purge of federal workers through the Department of Government Efficiency.

Verizon has a similar 15-year contract with the FAA, which Musk believes “is putting air travelers at serious risk,” he wrote on X. What is more likely to put air travelers at risk, however, is sacking some 400 FAA personnel, many of whom worked in critical safety roles.

SpaceX’s deal with the FAA is just the latest of Musk’s business ventures to be overseen by the federal government. The billionaire’s companies, namely SpaceX and Tesla, also have a hand in NASA, the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and other agencies. Over the last 10 years, SpaceX and Tesla were awarded at at least $18 billion in federal contracts, ABC News reported.

The contract has likely been in the works for several weeks. Following the plane crash that killed 67 people near Washington, D.C., which Donald Trump blamed on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, Musk spoke with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about remaking American airspace and doing it “quickly,” CNBC reported.

“He thinks differently than I think probably a lot of us do, but he has access to the best technological people, the best engineers in the world,” Duffy said of Musk at an event earlier this month.

“Thinks differently” is one way of putting it.

Donald Trump is working on bullying his way out of public criticism.

In an alarming Truth Social post Wednesday morning, the president threatened to wield his attorneys against those who criticize him, and even proposed making a “nice new law” that would infringe on Americans’ First Amendment rights.

“As a President who is being given credit for having the Best Opening Month of any President in history, quite naturally, here come the Fake books and stories with the so-called ‘anonymous,’ or ‘off the record,’ quotes,” Trump posted. “At some point I am going to sue some of these dishonest authors and book publishers, or even media in general, to find out whether or not these ‘anonymous sources’ even exist, which they largely do not.

“They are made up, defamatory fiction, and a big price should be paid for this blatant dishonesty,” he continued. “I’ll do it as a service to our Country. Who knows, maybe we will create some NICE NEW LAW!!!”

Suing people has always been a part of Trump’s business ethos, but unfortunately for him, the U.S. Constitution protects anonymous speech—a text that was, itself, adopted in part due to the practice. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay jointly wrote under the pen name “Publius” while publishing the Federalist Papers, their opus to promote the ratification of the Constitution.

It was not immediately clear if it was one author or several that set Trump out to publicly scorn them on his social media platform, but the threat comes on the heels of Michael Wolff’s latest exposé on the MAGA leader, All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America, an 18-month reporting journey drudging up behind-the-scenes details from Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, which published Tuesday. The book reportedly holds salacious details, including that the far-right politico was “on the verge of cracking” after the July assassination attempt, that first lady Melania Trump allegedly “fucking hates” her husband, and that Trump feared he was going to die on a private jet owned by Jeffrey Epstein. It also covers Trump’s hot and cold relationship with conservative news mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Trump has lambasted Wolff, who has previously written several bestsellers on the real estate mogul’s political rise, as a “total loser.” In a statement to the Daily Beast this week, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung torched Wolff as a “lying sack of shit.”

“Wolff says he has sources, but he doesn’t have them, it’s a LIE, as is the case with many so-called ‘journalists.’ If he has sources, let them be revealed. Watch, it will never happen,” Trump posted on Sunday.

In defense of his first bombshell exposé of Trump—Fire and Fury—Wolff claimed that he had spoken to upward of 200 sources to build the text and had accumulated dozens of hours’ worth of interviews to back up his writing.

But Trump’s covert warning to those in the publishing realm also comes on the heels of a flurry of attacks by his administration on the press at large. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the administration would take control of the White House press pool, hand-selecting which outlets are allowed access to the president and possibly replacing reporters from legacy publications with podcasters.

The White House Correspondents’ Association, which has handled press pool coverage since its founding in 1914, said that the decision “tears at the independence of a free press.”

And earlier this month, the Trump administration banned the Associated Press from accessing Air Force One and the Oval Office on the basis that the newswire chose to continue referring to the recently renamed “Gulf of America” as the “Gulf of Mexico” for its global audience.

Elon Musk’s net worth dropped by $22.2 billion on Tuesday, suggesting that the markets don’t have nearly as much confidence in Musk and Trump’s DOGE slashing and grabbing as they do. This is the fourth-largest one-day drop in net worth for the billionaire, according to Bloomberg.

The losses are most visible in the European market for Musk’s Tesla company. Tesla sales were cut in half in January as Musk’s international political meddling grows increasingly unpopular across the continent. In the United States, Tesla shares fell by 8.4 percent, sending the company’s market value under $1 trillion for the first time in months.

A strong market was one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises. But his actions since then—particularly his proximity and deference to Musk—have only led to more instability.

Read more at Bloomberg.

Donald Trump shared a bizarre AI-generated video to his social media accounts late Tuesday night showing a disturbing future for Gaza.

The video, shared to Trump’s Truth Social and Instagram accounts, imagines the Palestinian territory full of resorts, Dubai-like skyscrapers, a luxury Trump hotel, a giant golden statue of the president, and bearded, bikini-clad belly dancers. An upbeat dance song plays in the background with the lyrics “Donald Trump will set you free, bringing the light for all to see, no more tunnels, no more fear, Trump Gaza is finally here. Trump Gaza shining bright, golden future, a brand new light.”

Tech mogul and fascism enthusiast Elon Musk shows up in the video multiple times, enjoying food and throwing cash at Gaza residents. Trump is shown dancing with a belly dancer and lounging poolside, shirtless, with Israeli prime minister and wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump has floated a plan for the United States to take over Gaza and transfer its Palestinian population to neighboring countries Egypt and Jordan, which they have rejected along with U.S. allies in Europe. Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians and left most of the territory’s infrastructure in ruins.

The video is a disgusting look at Trump’s imagination for a territory currently experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe caused by U.S. support for Israel’s war in the form of military aid and tax dollars. Now Trump wants to expel Palestinians who have already lost their homes twice before to fulfill his sick development fantasies.

Elon Musk posted through the pain as he watched America’s checks and balances system spoil his plans in real time. 

On Tuesday, three different judges rejected three core Trump policies in the span of 90 minutes. Judge Loren AliKhan issued a preliminary injunction that stops the Trump administration from freezing federal grants and loans indefinitely, saying that Trump’s freeze was “irrational, imprudent, and precipitated a nationwide crisis.”

Judge Amir Ali ordered the Trump administration to pay foreign aid-related money owed to government contractors and nonprofit groups by Wednesday night, saying that Trump’s authority was “not limitless”  And finally, Judge Jamal Whitehead issued his own preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s refugee ban. 

These successive constitutional losses sent the South African billionaire into a frenzy. 

“What is the point of having democratic elections if unelected activist ‘judges’ can override the clear will of the people?” Musk wrote in response to Whitehead’s injunction. “Well, that’s no democracy at all!”

“If ANY judge ANYWHERE can block EVERY Presidential order EVERYWHERE, we do NOT have democracy, we have TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY,” he continued, complaining about a judiciary system that conservatives had no issue with when they happened to block Biden orders.

He also began to exchange posts with El Salvador’s authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele, who himself carried out a judicial purge to gain more power. 

“Unfortunately, as President Bukele eloquently articulates, there is no other option,” Musk wrote. “We must impeach to save democracy.”