Musk Allies Made FAA Staff Sign NDAs to Keep New Project Secret
The situation fits into some broader patterns: Musk and DOGE have expressed significant influence over what happens at the FAA, which regulates Musk's space company SpaceX. And as GovExec reported Thursday, Donald Trump's administration has required employees involved with the Veterans Affairs Department's plans to fire tens of thousands of workers to sign NDAs.
The world's richest man and DOGE have overseen mass firings and purges across the government, including at the FAA. At the same time, Musk has offered SpaceX's services to the agency, providing thousands of terminals from its satellite internet business, Starlink. Two months ago, The Washington Post reported that Starlink was jockeying to replace Verizon on a $2.4 billion contract with the FAA to upgrade its systems for managing America's airspace. Rolling Stone reported last month that FAA officials had recently ordered staffers to find tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal.
A watchdog group, the Campaign Legal Center, last month requested that the Department of Transportation's inspector general investigate whether Starlink's business transactions with the FAA violate conflict of interest rules, given Musk's role with the administration.
'The public has a right to know that their tax dollars are being spent in the public's best interest and not to benefit a government employee's companies. That is why Musk, while he remains a special government employee … is required to comply with the criminal conflict of interest law,' Delaney Marsco, the Campaign Legal Center's ethics director, tells Rolling Stone. 'He cannot legally participate in contracts or similar matters that affect his financial interests in Starlink or SpaceX. To the extent Musk is directing subordinates or working on [a] project himself, any attempt by him to get government business for his companies raises serious ethics concerns.'
Starlink has denied wanting to replace Verizon on the $2.4 billion contract. But recently, DOGE staffers who now work at the FAA have been directing FAA funds to a new initiative called 'Project Lift,' and employees involved have been made to sign NDAs to keep the details under wraps, according to three sources familiar with the situation. (All sources for this story were granted anonymity due to their fears of retaliation and so they could speak candidly about sensitive matters.)
Project Lift is meant to upgrade the FAA's network communications to more modern technologies, and touches on some of the same work as the Verizon project, according to one source as well as an FAA worker. The source clarifies the project is about air traffic communications. (They both say the name 'Project Lift' was forced on the agency by DOGE.)
After Rolling Stone reported that FAA staffers were told to hunt for money for a Starlink deal, the source says, 'They switched tactics — limited the pool of people who know about it and made them sign NDAs.' The source adds that 'DOGE staffers who are now FAA employees are calling the shots.'
An FAA spokesperson denies this timeline, but confirmed the existence of Project Lift and the basic thrust of how sources described it to Rolling Stone. 'The federal employees running Project Lift are exploring a variety of solutions to modernize the FAA's telecommunications network,' the spokesperson says. 'Current contractors are part of the discussion.'
The FAA did push back on the idea that DOGE is driving Project Lift. 'DOGE is not spearheading anything at the FAA, nor are there any DOGE employees at FAA,' the agency spokesperson says. 'Project Lift was conceived and is managed by federal employees.'
Speaking about the NDAs, the FAA spokesperson says: 'Employees routinely sign non-disclosure agreements to avoid conflicts of interest.'
It's not clear what company or companies are benefiting from the project, which has not been publicly announced. 'Only a few [staffers] know the exact details due to the NDAs,' the source says, adding that people 'just know DOGE is involved and anything with this project is the highest priority.'
'The billion-dollar question is: Who is getting the funding to consolidate these programs, why the secrecy, and why is DOGE all over it?' they say.
'Hedging your bets,' says the FAA worker, 'Project Lift could be an opportunity for Starlink to add itself to the portfolio of network communications for the FAA.' They say there's no guarantee that's going to happen — at least 'as of now.'
The FAA worker offers another potential reason for DOGE's involvement in the project, and its 'accelerated' timeline: Amid a series of troubling air safety incidents and accidents — and public outcry about DOGE's chaotic cuts — the DOGE team wants a win that they can sell people.
Two other people with knowledge of the matter say that though details remain murky, it is widely assumed internally that this project could be a perfect vehicle for embedding Musk's Starlink within the FAA's operations — should the administration decide to shove more money into the Trump adviser's business empire.
Responding to the idea that Project Lift could be an opportunity for Starlink, the FAA spokesperson says: 'To update our telecommunications system, it will require multiple companies and multiple technologies — this is not a one-technology solution. That is why we are testing not only satellites, but also fiber and wireless to ensure the safety of the national airspace system.'
Some FAA personnel have been implicitly threatened with having their lives ruined by potential criminal charges from the Trump Justice Department if they blab about Project Lift, according to a person familiar with the situation. Recently, when one FAA staffer was warned about leaking by a Musk-aligned superior, the staffer found the threat of prosecution laughable, given that none of the information they were aware of sounded classified, the person familiar with the situation adds.
Responding to the claims that FAA staffers have been threatened with criminal charges if they share details about Project Lift, the spokesperson only says, 'As with any non-disclosure agreement across the federal government, employees must follow the rules of the agreement to ensure there is no conflict of interest.'
The level of secrecy from Musk and Trump allies about Project Lift has raised alarm within the FAA, which the second Trump administration hasn't spared from its three-month campaign of fear, purging, loyalty pledges, and brazen corruption and abuses.
Musk, who spent $290 million to elect Trump and Republicans last year before being selected to lead DOGE, has been serving as a temporary 'special government employee,' rather than disclose his vast financial holdings and suffer through a confirmation process. He is expected to formally depart the administration soon, though he said Tuesday he expects to continue working with DOGE in some capacity for the rest of Trump's term.
Indeed, few senior administration officials and others close to Trump who spoke to Rolling Stone expect Musk to stop his meddling.
'It makes no difference, to me anyways, if Elon backs off or steps away or whatever soon,' says one of the sources with knowledge of Project Lift. 'His guys are here [at the FAA] and staying, and they've been giving orders on this stuff.'
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Yahoo
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Inside BYD's plan to rule the waves
Elon Musk had a problem. As Tesla struggled to ramp up sales in October 2022, it faced a critical shortage of ships to deliver its EVs. "There weren't enough boats, there weren't enough trains, there weren't enough car carriers," Musk told investors, after Tesla announced it had delivered tens of thousands of cars fewer than it made over the previous quarter. As Tesla struggled, its biggest Chinese rival devised a novel solution. BYD, which is on course to surpass Tesla this year as the world's top seller of EVs, decided in 2022 to build a fleet of seven giant ships, each capable of carrying thousands of cars. Unlike most of its Western rivals, which typically buy space on car carriers operated by shipping companies, BYD has cut out the intermediary as it doubles down on ambitious plans to sell half its cars outside China by 2030. Six of BYD's giant ships, which are emblazoned with the company's livery and a striking red and white color scheme, have entered service in the past year. Data obtained by Business Insider from ship tracking and maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic shows how the Chinese carmaker is using this fleet to drive an unprecedented international expansion, flooding ports in Europe, Brazil, and Mexico as it takes the fight to Tesla and overtakes legacy automakers. EVs on the high seas BYD's first ship set sail in January 2024, when the BYD Explorer No.1 — a 200-meter-long, 13-deck, roll-on roll-off behemoth — went into service. In July, the Zhengzhou, which can carry up to 7,000 vehicles, became the seventh vessel to join the fleet. The largest ship in BYD's armada, the Shenzhen, has a capacity of over 9,000 vehicles, making it one of the world's largest car-carrying vessels. The massive ships have been busy. After launching, Explorer No.1 immediately began a 41-day voyage to Europe, the first of three separate trips there in 2024. Explorer No.1 has also made three voyages to Brazil since May 2024. In May this year, it docked in the Brazilian port of Portocel in its second visit in four months, with two other BYD ships, the Hefei and the Shenzhen, also arriving in Brazil in April and May. All three arrived fully laden and left empty as BYD raced to deliver its vehicles to Brazil ahead of a planned EV tariff rise in July. The voyages to Europe and Brazil coincide with BYD's sales surging in both markets. BYD, which did not respond to a request for comment for this story, sold just 2,500 vehicles in Brazil in the first half of 2023. It's sold over 56,000 vehicles there so far this year, per data from Brazil's National Federation of Automotive Vehicle Distribution. That's more than Nissan, Renault, and Ford, and it has seen BYD take a dominant position in one of the world's fastest-growing EV markets. In Europe, BYD's sales in the first half of the year were more than 300% higher than over the same period in 2024. The Chinese carmaker sold more pure battery-electric vehicles than Musk's automaker in Europe for the first time in April, and its global EV sales have outpaced Tesla's for the past three quarters. Stian Omli, a senior vice president at logistics intelligence firm Esgian, told Business Insider that BYD was essentially operating a "shuttle service" between its production hubs in China and key ports in Europe and Brazil. BYD's strategy is shaking up the car shipping industry, which has been dominated historically by a handful of established shipping companies that usually plan and invest on cycles of a decade or longer. Companies like Norwegian logistics giant Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Japanese firm NYK Line sell space aboard their ships to multiple companies, then try to stop at as many ports as possible and pick up cargo for the return voyages. But Omli said BYD's strategy was to go direct, dump a massive number of EVs at one or two destination ports, and often return to China empty. "Just like they have changed the competitive landscape when it comes to cars, the Chinese are also changing the competitive landscape when it comes to the car carriers," Omli said. China's brutal EV market forces BYD to go global Stephen Dyer, managing director at auto consultancy AlixPartners, told Business Insider that the Chinese EV industry's drive to expand overseas is driven by a "never-ending" price war at home, as over 100 EV brands fight it out in the world's most brutally competitive car market. "If you can succeed outside China, you gain credibility with your core market consumers in China," said Dyer. BYD could do with a boost. In July, the automaker's sales fell for the first time this year, putting its target of selling 5.5 million cars in 2025 at risk. BYD's decision to operate its own ships had its roots in a post-COVID supply crunch between 2021 and 2023, when high demand combined with a shortage of specialised car carriers. This crunch sent the price of one car carrier for a yearlong charter soaring as high as $125,000 per day, far above the typical pre-COVID high of around $25,000, Omli said. This is what made Musk rage and prompted BYD to embark on its radical strategy just as it was beginning to enter international markets in earnest. BYD's setup allows the company to avoid being caught out if prices soar again, Omli said, and also gives it more flexibility to send its cars where and when it wants. Control over its supply chain is a key part of BYD's formula for building EVs quicker and cheaper than its rivals. The company manufactures almost all of its own parts. Executive vice president Stella Li previously said that the tires and windows of BYD's Dolphin hatchback were the only parts not made in-house. "Developing your own component suppliers gives BYD not only some cost leverage over other suppliers, but also the flexibility to do things much faster," Dyer said. "When you have your own fleet, it's the same idea. It allows you to do things quickly and flexibly. You can divert them to anywhere that you want to go, even part of the way on the voyage. You're assured of supply," he added. A costly gambit BYD is not the only Chinese EV company to dabble in deep-sea shipping. Rivals such as SAIC Motors have built even larger fleets, and Omli estimated the share of the global deep-sea car carrier fleet controlled by Chinese companies will rise from 10-15% to as much as 25% in the next few years. It's a hefty investment. Omli estimated that building the first four ships in its fleet cost BYD around $500 million, with such ships typically costing between $100 and $130 million each to build. BYD's fleet shows no signs of slowing down. The automaker's monthly vehicle exports in July were nearly three times higher than a year ago, per company figures, and its vessels have made six voyages to Europe so far this year. Recently, BYD's fleet has deployed its "shuttle service" strategy in Mexico. The 200-meter-long Changzhou became the first BYD vessel to arrive in the country in June, before criss-crossing the Pacific and returning with another load a month later. The Explorer No.1 has just made the same journey, docking at the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas on 14 August. BYD recently abandoned plans to build a factory in Mexico, but the company's EVs are still in high demand there. Executives say they expect sales to double this year. Data from Esgian shows that the four BYD vessels it tracks — The Explorer No.1, Shenzhen, Hefei, and Changzhou — have visited the Mexican ports of Mazatlan and Lararo Cardenas, along with Portocel, more than any other ports outside Asia this year. No risk, no reward While BYD's shipbuilding surge has given the company the flexibility to export its EVs at unprecedented volume, the strategy has risks. The company and its Chinese rivals have shipped so many vehicles to Europe over the past two years that it has put shipping infrastructure under pressure and turned some ports into giant parking lots. Germany-based auto analyst Matthias Schmidt told Business Insider that most of BYD's sales in Europe were to companies and dealerships, rather than consumers. Schmidt said he believed BYD's strategy was to flood the market through corporate channels and build enough momentum to become a recognisable brand for European consumers. The shipping supply crunch that pushed BYD to build its fleet has now mostly abated. A wave of car-carrying ships has been launched in the past two years, easing the shortage and bringing prices down to around $50,000 per day for one car carrier on a one-year charter, with Omli estimating they will probably fall to around $30,000. With shipping via external carriers a more affordable option, Schmidt said BYD now has to justify the massive costs of running its own fleet by exporting more vehicles. "That's probably partly behind the high number of vehicles coming to Europe right now. They need to ship those vessels relatively full to maximise utilisation," Schmidt added. Alexander Brown, a senior analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, said that "a lot has changed" since BYD went all in on its own ships three years ago. Since then, Western economies have raised trade barriers to protect their own auto industries from Chinese carmakers, and the Trump administration has set about reordering global trade with tariffs. With this protectionism in mind, BYD has another big investment: factories. It recently began production at its new factory in Brazil, on the site of a plant Ford closed in 2021 after years of poor sales and big losses, ending a century of Ford production in the country. The Detroit automaker also shut down multiple plants in Europe, and Chinese automakers are now filling that gap. BYD is building production sites for the European market in Hungary and Turkey. Brown added that, if BYD had known how much tariffs would rise after going all in on cargo ships, "they may have done things a little bit differently." Graphics by Jinpeng Li. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Inside BYD's plan to rule the waves
Elon Musk had a problem. As Tesla struggled to ramp up sales in October 2022, it faced a critical shortage of ships to deliver its EVs. "There weren't enough boats, there weren't enough trains, there weren't enough car carriers," Musk told investors, after Tesla announced it had delivered tens of thousands of cars fewer than it made over the previous quarter. As Tesla struggled, its biggest Chinese rival devised a novel solution. BYD, which is on course to surpass Tesla this year as the world's top seller of EVs, decided in 2022 to build a fleet of seven giant ships, each capable of carrying thousands of cars. Unlike most of its Western rivals, which typically buy space on car carriers operated by shipping companies, BYD has cut out the intermediary as it doubles down on ambitious plans to sell half its cars outside China by 2030. Six of BYD's giant ships, which are emblazoned with the company's livery and a striking red and white color scheme, have entered service in the past year. Data obtained by Business Insider from ship tracking and maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic shows how the Chinese carmaker is using this fleet to drive an unprecedented international expansion, flooding ports in Europe, Brazil, and Mexico as it takes the fight to Tesla and overtakes legacy automakers. BYD's first ship set sail in January 2024, when the BYD Explorer No.1 — a 200-meter-long, 13-deck, roll-on roll-off behemoth — went into service. In July, the Zhengzhou, which can carry up to 7,000 vehicles, became the seventh vessel to join the fleet. The largest ship in BYD's armada, the Shenzhen, has a capacity of over 9,000 vehicles, making it one of the world's largest car-carrying vessels. The massive ships have been busy. After launching, Explorer No.1 immediately began a 41-day voyage to Europe, the first of three separate trips there in 2024. Explorer No.1 has also made three voyages to Brazil since May 2024. In May this year, it docked in the Brazilian port of Portocel in its second visit in four months, with two other BYD ships, the Hefei and the Shenzhen, also arriving in Brazil in April and May. All three arrived fully laden and left empty as BYD raced to deliver its vehicles to Brazil ahead of a planned EV tariff rise in July. The voyages to Europe and Brazil coincide with BYD's sales surging in both markets. BYD, which did not respond to a request for comment for this story, sold just 2,500 vehicles in Brazil in the first half of 2023. It's sold over 56,000 vehicles there so far this year, per data from Brazil's National Federation of Automotive Vehicle Distribution. That's more than Nissan, Renault, and Ford, and it has seen BYD take a dominant position in one of the world's fastest-growing EV markets. In Europe, BYD's sales in the first half of the year were more than 300% higher than over the same period in 2024. The Chinese carmaker sold more pure battery-electric vehicles than Musk's automaker in Europe for the first time in April, and its global EV sales have outpaced Tesla's for the past three quarters. Stian Omli, a senior vice president at logistics intelligence firm Esgian, told Business Insider that BYD was essentially operating a "shuttle service" between its production hubs in China and key ports in Europe and Brazil. BYD's strategy is shaking up the car shipping industry, which has been dominated historically by a handful of established shipping companies that usually plan and invest on cycles of a decade or longer. Companies like Norwegian logistics giant Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Japanese firm NYK Line sell space aboard their ships to multiple companies, then try to stop at as many ports as possible and pick up cargo for the return voyages. But Omli said BYD's strategy was to go direct, dump a massive number of EVs at one or two destination ports, and often return to China empty. "Just like they have changed the competitive landscape when it comes to cars, the Chinese are also changing the competitive landscape when it comes to the car carriers," Omli said. China's brutal EV market forces BYD to go global Stephen Dyer, managing director at auto consultancy AlixPartners, told Business Insider that the Chinese EV industry's drive to expand overseas is driven by a "never-ending" price war at home, as over 100 EV brands fight it out in the world's most brutally competitive car market. "If you can succeed outside China, you gain credibility with your core market consumers in China," said Dyer. BYD could do with a boost. In July, the automaker's sales fell for the first time this year, putting its target of selling 5.5 million cars in 2025 at risk. BYD's decision to operate its own ships had its roots in a post-COVID supply crunch between 2021 and 2023, when high demand combined with a shortage of specialised car carriers. This crunch sent the price of one car carrier for a yearlong charter soaring as high as $125,000 per day, far above the typical pre-COVID high of around $25,000, Omli said. This is what made Musk rage and prompted BYD to embark on its radical strategy just as it was beginning to enter international markets in earnest. BYD's setup allows the company to avoid being caught out if prices soar again, Omli said, and also gives it more flexibility to send its cars where and when it wants. Control over its supply chain is a key part of BYD's formula for building EVs quicker and cheaper than its rivals. The company manufactures almost all of its own parts. Executive vice president Stella Li previously said that the tires and windows of BYD's Dolphin hatchback were the only parts not made in-house. "Developing your own component suppliers gives BYD not only some cost leverage over other suppliers, but also the flexibility to do things much faster," Dyer said. "When you have your own fleet, it's the same idea. It allows you to do things quickly and flexibly. You can divert them to anywhere that you want to go, even part of the way on the voyage. You're assured of supply," he added. A costly gambit BYD is not the only Chinese EV company to dabble in deep-sea shipping. Rivals such as SAIC Motors have built even larger fleets, and Omli estimated the share of the global deep-sea car carrier fleet controlled by Chinese companies will rise from 10-15% to as much as 25% in the next few years. It's a hefty investment. Omli estimated that building the first four ships in its fleet cost BYD around $500 million, with such ships typically costing between $100 and $130 million each to build. BYD's fleet shows no signs of slowing down. The automaker's monthly vehicle exports in July were nearly three times higher than a year ago, per company figures, and its vessels have made six voyages to Europe so far this year. Recently, BYD's fleet has deployed its "shuttle service" strategy in Mexico. The 200-meter-long Changzhou became the first BYD vessel to arrive in the country in June, before criss-crossing the Pacific and returning with another load a month later. The Explorer No.1 has just made the same journey, docking at the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas on 14 August. BYD recently abandoned plans to build a factory in Mexico, but the company's EVs are still in high demand there. Executives say they expect sales to double this year. Data from Esgian shows that the four BYD vessels it tracks — The Explorer No.1, Shenzhen, Hefei, and Changzhou — have visited the Mexican ports of Mazatlan and Lararo Cardenas, along with Portocel, more than any other ports outside Asia this year. No risk, no reward While BYD's shipbuilding surge has given the company the flexibility to export its EVs at unprecedented volume, the strategy has risks. The company and its Chinese rivals have shipped so many vehicles to Europe over the past two years that it has put shipping infrastructure under pressure and turned some ports into giant parking lots. Germany-based auto analyst Matthias Schmidt told Business Insider that most of BYD's sales in Europe were to companies and dealerships, rather than consumers. Schmidt said he believed BYD's strategy was to flood the market through corporate channels and build enough momentum to become a recognisable brand for European consumers. The shipping supply crunch that pushed BYD to build its fleet has now mostly abated. A wave of car-carrying ships has been launched in the past two years, easing the shortage and bringing prices down to around $50,000 per day for one car carrier on a one-year charter, with Omli estimating they will probably fall to around $30,000. With shipping via external carriers a more affordable option, Schmidt said BYD now has to justify the massive costs of running its own fleet by exporting more vehicles. "That's probably partly behind the high number of vehicles coming to Europe right now. They need to ship those vessels relatively full to maximise utilisation," Schmidt added. Alexander Brown, a senior analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, said that "a lot has changed" since BYD went all in on its own ships three years ago. Since then, Western economies have raised trade barriers to protect their own auto industries from Chinese carmakers, and the Trump administration has set about reordering global trade with tariffs. With this protectionism in mind, BYD has another big investment: factories. It recently began production at its new factory in Brazil, on the site of a plant Ford closed in 2021 after years of poor sales and big losses, ending a century of Ford production in the country. The Detroit automaker also shut down multiple plants in Europe, and Chinese automakers are now filling that gap. BYD is building production sites for the European market in Hungary and Turkey. Brown added that, if BYD had known how much tariffs would rise after going all in on cargo ships, "they may have done things a little bit differently." Graphics by Jinpeng Li.
Yahoo
an hour ago
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A MAGA Voter's List Breaking Down 4 Major Things Trump Needs To Do Better As President Is Going Viral, And It's Not What You'd Expect
A Reddit post by a MAGA voter has recently gone viral for sharing a list of things Donald Trump needs to do better as President — but it's not exactly what you expect. At the start of the post, the MAGA voter explained why they voted for Trump in the first place, expressing their belief that a woman should not be president. "He was the best we had to choose from and I don't believe a woman should sit in that position." Related: They then went on to list what needs to change in the Trump presidency. "Tired of hearing about Elon Musk and see some results." They wrote about Trump focusing on people other than the Biden family. "Move on from Joe Biden..." Related: They emphasized Trump continuously bringing up past events. "Stop living in the forward." Related: And advised Trump to stop the division, and "work for of America." Many people in the original poster's comments who also voted for Trump expressed support for the post: "We voted for Trump because there was not any other option. His big beautiful bill does zero for middle class Americans..." "I would love to see the Bidens prosecuted but it's time to move on and quit dwelling..." this user wrote. "I also do not believe a woman should hold that well said." Related: Elsewhere, this person wrote, "It's really, really telling they'd rather have a felon than a woman running the country." "Lol most of these [people] don't realize they're spouting liberal talking points," another person wrote. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below. Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds:
