Elon Musk and the plot to hijack America’s broadband

Jeff Bezos—along with newly minted trillionaire Elon Musk—has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD), a $42.45 billion broadband expansion program passed as part of President Joe Biden’s 2021 “Build Back Better” initiative. BEAD was intended to give long-underserved communities billions of dollars for high-quality, future-proof fiber networks. But under President Donald Trump and a coalition of MAGA-allied tech moguls, Build Back Better has been transformed into “tear down quickly,” leaving states mired in bureaucracy and delays. Five years later, only a handful of the millions of Americans slated for an internet access upgrade actually got one, and there’s little accountability in sight. When Trump took office for the second time in 2025, MAGA billionaire Howard Lutnick was confirmed as commerce secretary and set about overhauling BEAD — proclaiming that the program “has not connected a single person to the internet and is in dire need of a readjustment.” That readjustment included a BEAD Restructuring Policy Notice that eliminated “woke” program affordability and equity requirements and lowered quality control standards for new networks. Perhaps most consequentially, it undermined one of Congress’ central goals: improving American fiber. The infrastructure law’s text didn’t mandate construction of specific network technologies, but it explicitly called for BEAD to prioritize terrestrial fiber networks over wireless or cable broadband. Congress recognized that it would be foolish to spend thousands of dollars per home every five to 10 years to deliver obsolete connections like coaxial cable-based broadband or settle for congested “good enough” satellite networks. SecLutnick, however, demanded state proposals be “technology neutral.” He insisted the changes would “turbocharge speed and savings,” dubbing them “the benefit of the bargain.” In reality, the changes turned BEAD’s focus toward nascent satellite internet companies run by tech moguls. It redirected $738.8 million into the already deeply subsidized pockets of Elon Musk, President Trump’s biggest campaign donor, with another $311 million for Bezos’ Amazon Leo. Billions more in subsidies for both billionaires — for networks that already exist or would have been deployed anyway — are waiting in the wings.