Elon Musk Lies, Falsely Claims Subsidizing Starlink Would Have Saved Hurricane Helene Victims

I know I’ve argued that not every Elon Musk brain fart warrants its own news cycle, but this one is particularly gross given recent events.

We’ve noted repeatedly how in 2020, the Trump administration tried to give Elon Musk’s low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband company Starlink nearly a billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies to connect some traffic medians and airport parking lots.

We’ve also noted that Musk and his Republican friends have been whining like toddlers because the Biden FCC backed away from those subsidies, correctly noting that they weren’t sure that the expensive and increasingly congestion-plagued satellite service could consistently deliver quality speeds. Instead, the Biden FCC (again, correctly) argued that if you’re going to spend billions of taxpayer money on broadband, it should be on more reliable and less congested options like fiber, 5G, or fixed wireless.

Enter Hurricane Helene, which recently carved a swath of destruction from Florida into the Carolinas, destroying homes and knocking out power and cell service for millions of people. Musk apparently couldn’t help but inject himself into the story, using the suffering of Helene victims as the perfect opportunity to whine that he should have gotten more taxpayer money:

If you can’t see it, that’s Musk claiming over at his post-truth network that if the FCC had agreed to give Starlink a billion dollars, there’d be nearly 20,000 working satellite kits in areas impacted by Helene. He goes on to falsely accuse the FCC of killing people and breaking the law, adding “lawfare costs lives.”

There was nothing illegal about the FCC’s decision. Even if Musk’s Starlink had received the money, the build out the money was funding wouldn’t have started until 2025. And even if Starlink had received that money, there’s no guarantee that locals could have afforded the expensive $120 a month (plus hardware fees) the service costs. Or that the power would have been on so that the dishes could have been used. Or that roof-mounted dishes would have survived the storm.

And this is all before you get to the fact the Musk whines constantly about how he really doesn’t like subsidies — right before turning around with his hand outstretched. And again, as consumer groups noted early on, Starlink was one of several companies that tried to game the badly mismanaged Trump-era broadband subsidy program despite being unable to meet program speed goals.

“Chairwoman Rosenworcel stands by the FCC’s thorough review of a program meant to provide long-term access to reliable and affordable broadband in rural communities,” the commission said in a statement provided to PC Magazine. “In this instance, the agency denied public funds to more than a dozen companies—not just Starlink—who did not meet the program requirements. As an independent agency, the FCC takes seriously its obligation to ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to entities that fully comply with the rules and the law.”

When it comes to subsidizing broadband, you want taxpayer money going to the most beneficial and cost effective option. Usually that’s something like middle mile or open access last mile fiber networks, which not only drive high-capacity, “future proof” fiber connectivity into a region, but also improve local cellular connectivity, and lower the cost of market entry to boost regional broadband competition.

If you can’t do that, you subsidize local 5G and fixed wireless efforts, which are more congested than fiber but still generally more reliable and less capacity constrained than satellite. Starlink is a fine option to fill in the coverage gaps after you’ve done all of that, but again it lacks the capacity to truly scale and it’s expensive — which is a problem given that cost is the biggest obstacle to U.S. broadband access at the moment.

What you don’t do is throw billions of unaccountable taxpayer dollars at a petty billionaire’s expensive satellite venture that may or may not even exist ten years from now, and is increasingly seeing congestion and slowdowns due to over-saturation of the physics-constrained network.

Of course Musk being Musk, he couldn’t help but inject himself into a massive tragedy to try and generate pity and grab additional taxpayer money. Meanwhile, the FCC is actually coordinating disaster response and tracking service and 911 outages, while providing discounted communications access to impacted survivors. FEMA says it’s also trying to leverage all manner of options, including Starlink, to shore up regional emergency connectivity.

To be clear Musk did do more than tweet. The conspiratorial CEO claims he did actually send some Starlink terminals to the powerless region, though Musk being Musk, and the U.S. press being the U.S. press, it’s not entirely clear if anybody actually confirmed delivery. Most of the press ignored his gross subsidy quip, and immediately jumped to portraying Musk as an altruistic life saver who is single-handedly restoring connectivity to the region:

Usually what winds up being the most help in disasters like this (after food and water) are good old traditional HAM radio operators, who help orchestrate basic coordination when all other options are out of commission. What doesn’t necessarily help as much are loud-mouthed, petulant and conspiratorial billionaires with more money than sense, keen on exploiting tragedies to undermine government regulators and glom on to taxpayer subsidies they routinely pretend to have disdain for.