US official blasts Trump’s broadband funding shift from fiber to Starlink

Evan Feinman, former director of the BEAD program, criticized Elon Musk’s plan to prioritize satellite internet, calling it a betrayal of rural Americans amid concerns of profit-driven motives. Feinman sent the email on Friday, March 14. Feinman also said that BEAD was almost ready to implement fiber access in many states that badly need it.

The federal BEAD program is supposedly going to get revamped by the Commerce Department, and subsidies for Starlink projects could rise from just $4 billion in the coming years all the way up to $20 billion, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.