type: timeline_event
Evan Feinman, the director of the Commerce Department’s $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, resigned in March 2025 with a public warning that the Trump administration was restructuring the program to benefit Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service. Feinman sent a farewell email to colleagues criticizing Starlink and warning that proposed regulatory changes would undermine the program’s original mission of deploying fiber-optic internet to underserved communities. Rolling Stone and Politico reported that Feinman’s warning was unusually blunt for a departing federal official.
The BEAD program, established under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, was designed to prioritize fiber cable infrastructure for most communities, with satellite service as a last resort for areas where fiber was not technically feasible. Proposed changes under the Trump administration would give states greater flexibility to use satellite internet — including Starlink — as an equivalent alternative to fiber, even where fiber was viable. Critics noted this could redirect billions of federal dollars toward a technology owned by the man simultaneously leading DOGE with access to the administration’s regulatory machinery.
NPR’s subsequent reporting confirmed that proposed changes to BEAD rules would make satellite internet significantly more competitive with fiber for subsidy purposes, raising the prospect of large federal BEAD payments flowing to Starlink. The conflict of interest was explicit: Musk led a government advisory role while his company stood to receive billions in federal infrastructure contracts shaped by policy changes his government access could influence. Feinman’s departure and warning became one of the most prominent examples of a career official publicly identifying Musk’s conflicts of interest as a reason for their resignation.