D.C. Memo: Arielle Roth's First Headache− Call It the Musk Migraine
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BEAD: Aspirin, Advil, or double martini? If NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth left her Commerce Department office with a splitting migraine last night, here’s the reason: Elon Musk. Just weeks after blowing up with President Trump and forming the America Party, Musk lashed out at Republican-led Virginia officials Wednesday over the state’s planned allocation of its share of BEAD program riches. Musk – in a dispute that Roth might have to broker along with potentially dozens more fueled by the mercurial SpaceX leader – argued that Virginia short-changed his Starlink satellite Internet service in violation of BEAD rules that called for strict neutrality among Internet access technologies. “Virginia received a proposal from SpaceX to serve virtually every BEAD-eligible household in Virginia with high-speed broadband for $60 million, available to Virginians immediately,” Starlink parent SpaceX, both controlled by Musk, said in an Aug. 13 letter to the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, though the intended target was most likely Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. “Instead,” the letter continued, “Virginia proposes to spend $613 million … for connectivity that will be deployed at some point within the next four years, if ever, resulting in taxpayers overspending for connectivity in Virginia by ten times the necessary amount.” Virginia officials did not offer a public reaction. (More after paywall.)
