Days after the U.S. presidential election in November 2024, Brendan Carr, a member of the Federal Communications Commission, posted a photo of himself with Elon Musk and President-elect Donald J. Trump at a rocket launch for SpaceX.<\/p>\n
\u201cA historic day at Starbase,\u201d Mr. Carr wrote in the post, referring to the Texas headquarters of Mr. Musk\u2019s rocket and satellite company. \u201cAnother giant leap forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around the same time, Mr. Musk recommended Mr. Carr to Mr. Trump as an ideal leader for the agency. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Carr got the job<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since then, the F.C.C. chairman has lavished praise on Mr. Musk, repeatedly expressing his admiration for the tech mogul. He has greenlighted a satellite request from SpaceX and changed some of the agency\u2019s rules to benefit the company.<\/p>\n \u201cI would be very hesitant betting against Elon Musk,\u201d Mr. Carr, a Republican, told Reuters last month. Those who did, he said, \u201chave lost a lot of money along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Carr\u2019s stance on SpaceX and Mr. Musk stands out from his behavior with other companies that the F.C.C. oversees. He started an investigation into the satellite company EchoStar, a SpaceX rival, after Mr. Musk\u2019s company complained about it. He targeted the television networks ABC<\/a> and NBC over their coverage of Mr. Trump, threatening to take away their broadcast licenses. And he threatened to block<\/a> media and telecom deals over their diversity, equity and inclusion policies, opening investigations into Disney<\/a> and Comcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Carr\u2019s \u201cfavoritism is unbecoming of a public official tasked with overseeing what\u2019s supposed to be an independent consumer protection agency,\u201d said Jessica J. Gonz\u00e1lez, a co-chief executive of Free Press, a left-of-center media and tech advocacy group. She added that it was rare for a public official to even appear to \u201cpick winners and losers.\u201d<\/p>\n The relationship between Mr. Musk and Mr. Carr is more important than ever as SpaceX prepares for the world\u2019s largest initial public offering ever this week. As the top regulator of broadcast and communication licenses that are required to transmit signals across publicly owned airwaves, Mr. Carr wields major influence over the expansion of Starlink, SpaceX\u2019s cash cow and only profitable subsidiary. The service\u2019s 9,600 satellites fly in low Earth orbit, beaming internet service to 10 million customers around the globe, including airlines, governments and the Ukrainian Army.<\/p>\n Starlink hauled in more than $11.4 billion in revenue last year, constituting 61 percent of SpaceX\u2019s total sales, according to the company\u2019s filings, and said it could eventually grow to $1.6 trillion in revenue. SpaceX expects to be valued at $1.77 trillion upon going public, which would make it larger than Meta, and it will need Starlink to justify that valuation and continue growing.<\/p>\n The F.C.C. was mentioned 25 times in SpaceX\u2019s offering prospectus \u2014 more than any other government agency \u2014 including references to its satellite spectrum licenses. The Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees rocket launches, was referred to 23 times.<\/p>\n \u201cCarr has taken multiple actions for which Musk was the prime beneficiary,\u201d said Blair Levin, an adviser to New Street Research, an investment research firm, and a former chief of staff at the F.C.C. He added that Starlink \u201chas gotten a huge amount from the Trump administration and Carr.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Carr has denied favoring SpaceX and has said he supports all companies. In February, he approved Amazon\u2019s request to launch 4,500 satellites for its satellite internet service, Leo, also a SpaceX competitor.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump is restoring U.S. leadership in next-generation technologies,\u201d an agency spokesman said in a statement. \u201cAnd the F.C.C.\u2019s work to boost America\u2019s space economy is part of that effort. We now have multiple different satellite providers competing to provide consumers with affordable, high-speed connectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Musk and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n It is unclear when Mr. Carr and Mr. Musk first met. Mr. Carr has long said that he admires Mr. Musk\u2019s free speech stance, and that liberals unfairly targeted the entrepreneur during the Biden administration.<\/p>\n In 2022, a public interest group asked the F.C.C. to block Mr. Musk\u2019s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, now X. Mr. Carr, one of five commissioners at the agency at the time, issued a statement that said the F.C.C. had no authority to do so.<\/p>\n A year later, the F.C.C. revoked Starlink\u2019s access to the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, a federal subsidy program that provides internet service to communities with little to no access. Starlink did not meet the speed and other technical requirements for eligibility, Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat appointed chair of the agency under the Biden administration, said at the time.<\/p>\n Starlink swiftly lost $885 million in subsidies. Mr. Carr called the move \u201cregulatory harassment\u201d against Mr. Musk.<\/p>\n In 2024, Mr. Carr came to Mr. Musk\u2019s defense again.<\/p>\n The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, a nonprofit, petitioned the F.C.C. to block Starlink\u2019s satellite licenses over claims of interference in communications during the Ukrainian-Russian war. Mr. Musk had refused Ukraine\u2019s request to activate his Starlink satellite network in Crimea\u2019s port city of Sevastopol to aid an attack on Russia\u2019s fleet, the group claimed.<\/p>\n Mr. Carr slammed the group\u2019s petition, saying it was \u201cpart of a clear and repeating pattern of regulatory harassment that accelerated the moment Elon Musk stood up for free speech.\u201d The F.C.C. did not act on the request.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk invited Mr. Carr in August 2024 to SpaceX\u2019s Boca Chica, Texas, facilities, where the men posed for a photo together.<\/p>\n \u201cElon Musk has transformed long-dormant industries, and he\u2019s developed a first principles \u2018production algorithm\u2019 to deliver results,\u201d Mr. Carr posted at the time. <\/p>\n The next month, Mr. Carr posted on X that he had sent a warning letter to Brazilian telecom regulators, who had threatened to freeze Starlink\u2019s service. The government there had blocked X<\/a> in Brazil over the spread of hate and misinformation. Starlink\u2019s internet, however, continued to give users access to the social media site.<\/p>\n Mr. Carr threatened that penalizing Starlink would hurt the F.C.C.\u2019s partnership with the Brazilian regulators.<\/p>\n \u201cMuch appreciated,\u201d Mr. Musk replied to Mr. Carr\u2019s post. Mr. Musk eventually backed down in Brazil, complying with the government\u2019s demands that X block certain accounts spreading misinformation. His businesses still operate there.<\/p>\n During the presidential transition, Mr. Musk issued his recommendation of Mr. Carr for the F.C.C. job. Mr. Carr later started the investigation into EchoStar after SpaceX complained that its rival was not fully utilizing its spectrum, the valuable radio frequencies used to transmit phone calls and broadband internet.<\/p>\n Mr. Carr\u2019s intervention led EchoStar to sell some spectrum to SpaceX a year later for $17 billion. Starlink could use that spectrum to send its services direct to consumer phones and other devices, allowing it to compete with AT&T and Verizon, telecom analysts said.<\/p>\n EchoStar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n In January, the F.C.C. granted SpaceX\u2019s request to deploy 7,500 satellites to bolster internet service worldwide over protests from some rivals that the approval could harm competition<\/a>. That same month, SpaceX asked the F.C.C. for permission to deploy one million satellites to create data centers in space to help power artificial intelligence development, an application that is still underway.<\/p>\n Astronomers and environmentalists have said SpaceX\u2019s application could alter the skies and create a junkyard of space debris. Sleep experts have also warned that floating data centers could light up in a way that would disturb the circadian rhythms of plants and animals.<\/p>\n Amazon hit back, too, calling Starlink\u2019s application \u201ca lofty ambition rather than a real plan\u201d that would take centuries to complete.<\/p>\n But Mr. Carr was having none of it.<\/p>\n \u201cAmazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,\u201d he posted on X in March.<\/p>\n After lobbying by SpaceX, the F.C.C. in April loosened decades-old rules<\/a> dictating how satellites could share spectrum. The F.C.C. voted<\/a> to modernize the rules, which will cut costs for satellite internet companies and allow for faster service.<\/p>\n