West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey last week announced a change to a federally subsidized broadband program that received little attention. This came as no surprise. It sounded like an unremarkable announcement about a government project getting extended.
But beneath the surface, the news marked the first instance of a state acting at the direction of the Trump administration to disrupt a multibillion-dollar pool of funds that could potentially benefit White House adviser Elon Musk.
For the past four years, states, including West Virginia, have worked with the federal government to finalize plans to extend underground fiber-optic cables to the estimated 22 million Americans who do not have access to the internet at home.
However, the Trump administration is overhauling the $42 billion federal grant program known as the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program to be “tech neutral,” in an effort to encourage more satellite internet service. This is despite telecommunications experts insisting that fiber is the fastest and most cost-effective way to connect underserved communities.
Republicans in Washington argue that companies such as Musk’s Starlink satellite company were excluded from the grants under former President Joe Biden. And the program’s redesign aims to address this. Democrats and Musk critics see the White House’s push as a handout to the tech mogul.
West Virginia announced that White House officials have given the state 90 days to evaluate the most efficient ways to connect remote residents with fast internet service, including satellite options.
Morrisey’s office did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.
Evan Feinman, who oversaw the federal broadband grant program in the Commerce Department under Biden, believes the move makes little sense.
“West Virginia was ahead of schedule, under budget, and prepared to provide excellent connections to every West Virginian home and business.” “How can anyone go back and say, ‘Let’s go back to the drawing board,'” said Feinman, who resigned from his position as head of the broadband initiative earlier this month.
“It’s hard to identify any sensible case for upending these plans based on the technology or the economics,” Feinman told reporters.
Telecom expert: How much money will Musk get?
The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, also known as BEAD, which was authorized by Congress when lawmakers passed the 2021 infrastructure bill, has faced criticism from many quarters for its slow pace.
When President Trump appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast shortly before the November election, the two expressed surprise that BEAD had not yet connected a single household.
Rogan stated that if Musk’s Starlink had been used to connect those without high-speed internet access, he could have done so already. “He wanted to do that,” Trump said, referring to Musk’s Starlink, which was already set to receive billions from the $42 billion grant program. Nonetheless, Musk and his supporters insisted that Starlink was being unfairly prioritized over fiber broadband.
So when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced earlier this month that the Trump administration would be revamping the program, industry experts assumed it was a gift to Musk.
“How much money can he get?” “How much money can he keep a competitor from getting?” Blair Levin, a Brookings Institution telecom policy analyst, stated the following. “If the decision is made on the basis of politics, it will cost the country for decades to come.”
According to Levin, traditional fiber broadband is faster, cheaper, and more stable than satellite internet services such as Starlink. He stated that satellite service is particularly effective for households in remote areas with no other options.
“Satellite internet is like a dirt road, fiber internet is like a highway,” said Drew Garner of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. “You can build a few houses off a dirt road, but you can build hospitals, schools, businesses and entire cities off a highway.”
Starlink, owned by Musk’s SpaceX, is a system that connects a small antenna atop a house to a constellation of satellites in orbit.
A Starlink plan comparable to high-speed fiber service costs around $120 per month, with hardware costing about $400. Because of the high cost of establishing a satellite network, there are only a few serious competitors, none of whom have focused on the consumer market as Starlink has.
Levin believes that some of the frustration with BEAD’s glacial pace is understandable and shared by people from all political parties.
Liberal political commentator Ezra Klein appeared on comedian Jon Stewart’s podcast and detailed the 14-step process states must go through to receive federal funding, leaving Stewart astounded.
“I’m speechless,” Stewart admitted. “The fact that they amputated their own legs on this is so stunning.”
Musk, who is not a fan of Klein or Stewart, posted a video clip of the back-and-forth on his X account, which has been viewed nearly 30 million times.
Even Feinman, who oversaw the initiative, expressed regret that construction had not begun sooner, arguing that the Trump administration’s changes will only exacerbate the delay.
“I’m sympathetic to the argument that the program should’ve gone faster,” she said. “But the program went too slowly does not lead logically to, ‘We should then slow the program down more so we can provide worse connections at a higher end-user cost.'”
Trump’s pick to oversee BEAD says it’s a victim of “woke social agenda”
Arielle Roth, an adviser to Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, is the new person Trump has appointed to make decisions about this large sum of money.
She once claimed that this $42 billion grant program had a “extreme tech bias in favor of fiber,” and that it had been a victim of a “woke social agenda,” referring to program provisions that encourage states to select companies with racially diverse workforces or firms backed by labor unions. Those rules are expected to be repealed under Commerce Secretary Lutnick.
Democrats pressed Roth during her Senate confirmation hearing last week to commit to not using the broadband program to subsidize Musk’s business empire.
“If I’m fortunate to be confirmed, I will administer the program to the benefit of the American people, not any single individual or company,” Roth told the Senate Finance Committee. Her confirmation vote is not yet scheduled.
During the hearing, Cruz stated that billionaire Musk was not treated fairly when the program began.
“The Biden administration, I think, engaged in petulant and partisan politics by blacklisting Elon Musk and Starlink, which is technology that could have connected particularly households in distant rural places,” Cruz claimed.
With Musk now a top adviser in the White House, telecom analysts like Garner say that if Starlink wins a large portion of the federal program, “America’s taxpayers’ money are going to pay Elon Musk to give Americans expensive and slow internet service when they could have had fast and affordable internet service.”
SpaceX, like most of Musk’s other companies, lacks a communications department. Neither Musk nor the Commerce Department responded to requests for comment.
The BEAD program may be the largest source of federal funding that Starlink will soon be able to access, but it is not the only one.
Brendan Carr, an outspoken Musk supporter, now heads the Federal Communications Commission. He frequently promotes Musk’s companies on X and has posed for photographs with Musk. And he once claimed that the Biden administration had subjected Musk to “regulatory harassment.”
After initially awarding Starlink a nearly $900 million rural broadband contract, the Biden FCC declined to renew the contract in 2023. Carr disagreed with the course change, calling it “a clear error” that would result in additional delays.
Under Carr, the FCC may revisit this decision.
Garner, the broadband expert, stated that Starlink did not receive the funds at the time because fiber optic technology is faster, more affordable, and requires less maintenance.
“You do essentially have to rebuild the Starlink network every five years because satellites are constantly falling out of the sky,” he told me.
Then there’s radio spectrum: the invisible highways that enable all wireless communication.
Starlink will ask the FCC for more of it. If it prevails, Starlink could gain a significant advantage over other satellite companies.
NPR contacted five Starlink rivals, but none agreed to an interview.
Levin of Brookings stated that this is due to a culture of fear. “Everyone is reluctant to attack Musk or to attack the president right now,” according to him.
Levin said companies are concerned about retaliation from the White House, which began receiving Starlink internet service earlier this month.
