Elon Musk, the FAA, and a one-sided relationship

The company said in a lengthy statement that the blocks were “driven by false and misleading reporting based on bad-faith hysteria by online detractors or special interest groups who presented poorly constructed science as fact.”

A SpaceX spokesman did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend.

In an interview Monday at the All-In Summit, Musk mocked the FAA at the time it took the agency to approve SpaceX launches.

“It shouldn’t be possible to build a giant rocket faster than you can move paper from one desk to another,” Musk said.

According to the FAA, overseeing a single missile launch is a laborious process that can include license approval and route planning to ensure a missile can be safely launched in designated airspace.

An FAA spokesman did not respond to a request for comment sent over the weekend.

FAA spokesman Steven Kulm previously told BI that “SpaceX submitted new information in mid-August detailing how the environmental impact of Flight 5 will cover a larger area than previously analyzed.” The spokesman added that changes to the vehicle’s configuration were also causing the delays.

Unfortunately for the FAA, Musk isn’t offering any points for the attempt.

The FAA is working overtime for Elon

The agency has more than 45,000 employees and has struggled in recent years to keep up with the growing number of rocket launches from commercial space companies. In 2023, SpaceX launched 98 rockets, according to Space.com, which would account for 87 percent of the launches the regulator said it oversaw that year.

The agency estimates it will oversee three times as many launches by 2028.

To account for this anticipated growth, the Biden Administration requested $57 million to fund the FAA’s licensing office, a significant increase from the $38 million the office received in 2023. The FAA also hired , 33 more employees at its licensing office last year, The New York. The Times reported in April.

Daniel Murray, executive director of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which handles license applications, said Wednesday at the Global Aerospace Summit in DC that his office is investing most of its resources in SpaceX.

“They get most of our resources,” he said, according to a Bloomberg report. “80% of the overtime we log, and that’s hundreds of hours a month, goes to SpaceX.”

Murray defended his office against claims by SpaceX and Musk that the agency was unnecessarily delaying the Starship launch.

According to Bloomberg, Murray said the recent delay in Starship’s launch was mainly due to an ongoing environmental assessment process, but added that SpaceX has also made changes to the scope of its flight plan.

“They chose to do something different,” Murray said, according to Bloomberg. “They pivoted. We pivoted with them.”

Excess regulation

The common thread in Musk’s confusion over the FAA is the billionaire’s general disdain for what he sees as excessive government regulation. Musk has repeatedly painted rules and red tape as the death knell of innovation.

“Rules and regulations are immortal, they don’t die,” Musk told The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council summit in 2021.
“There is not really an effective garbage collection system to eliminate rules and regulations. And so, gradually, this hardens the arteries of civilization, where you are able to do less and less over time.”

Musk has been increasingly vocal on social media about taking a more hands-on role in the White House under a second Trump administration.

Similar to his approach during the Twitter takeover, Musk proposed shrinking the size of government by eliminating federal agencies.

Political science experts told BI that while government can be inefficient, Musk’s business-like approach to running a government overlooks the fact that it is structured in part to meet people’s needs rather than prioritize profits.

“Sometimes that’s not economically efficient,” University of Southern California political science professor Christian Grose told BI.

At Monday’s All-In summit, Musk credited the federal employees he may seek to lay off.

“I am not saying that there are no competent people in government; they’re just in an operating system that’s inefficient,” he said.