Elon Musks satellite business Starlink may not have officially taken over Verizons $2.4 billion contract with the Federal Aviation Administration yet to upgrade the systems it uses to manage Americas airspace. However, on Friday, FAA officials ordered staff to begin finding tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal, according to a source with knowledge of the FAA and two people briefed on the situation.The sources note that these internal directives have mostly, if not entirely, been delivered verbally which they say is unusual for a matter like this. The source with knowledge of the FAA tells Rolling Stone that it appears as though someone does not want a paper trail.It is unclear at this moment if the Verizon contract is officially dead, or if a Starlink deal has been formally inked.The FAA and SpaceX, the Musk company that owns Starlink, did not respond to Rolling Stones request for comment.Musk, the worlds richest man, is leading Donald Trumps so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In that role, he has overseen an unprecedented purge of the federal workforce, including at the FAA, as well as DOGEs efforts to gain access and control over sensitive information and systems.Trump and Musk recently directed the firings of hundreds of employees at the FAA, a long understaffed agency, ranging from air traffic control support staff, lawyers tasked with keeping drunk and reckless pilots out of the skies, and staffers who evaluate potential new construction hazards to inform flight paths.Musks exceedingly powerful role leading DOGE and myriad business interests present obvious and staggering potential conflicts of interests, which government contracting rules and ethics requirements are supposed to prohibit. SpaceX has benefited from billions of dollars in government contracts. And many of the government agencies he is shredding regulate his businesses.The FAA, for example, fined SpaceX last year for safety and regulatory violations. Afterward, Musk publicly demanded the agencys previous Senate-confirmed administrator, Michael Whitaker, resign; Whitaker departed the day Trump took office.The agency has also been conducting a mishap investigation into a SpaceX rocket explosion in January, which occurred days before Trump took office, that sent falling debris across the Caribbean. That hasnt stopped Musk from gutting the FAA, or from offering to help the agency. Last month, he volunteered the services of his SpaceX engineers to the FAA to help make air travel safer.Last week, Bloomberg reported that Musk recently approved a deal to ship 4,000 Starlink terminals to the FAA. Musk has claimed on his platform X that Starlink terminals are being sent at NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity.According to The Washington Post, the Trump administration is considering giving Starlink a $2.4 billion contract that had already been awarded to Verizon, to upgrade the information technology systems the FAA uses to manage Americas airspace.Musk asserted last week, without evidence, that the Verizon communication system to air traffic control is breaking down very rapidly, before correcting himself to say that Verizons system is not yet operational.Have a tip for our reporters? Contact Andrew Perez on Signal at aperezrs.15 and Asawin Suebsaeng at swin24.68.