SpaceX, GOP Commissioners Assail RDOF Decision
The FCC's reaffirming that SpaceX doesn't qualify for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program is in direct contravention to the agency's supposed prioritization of closing the digital divide, SpaceX told the agency Tuesday night after the FCC announced that…
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the commissioners had voted 3-2 to uphold a Wireline Bureau decision that SpaceX couldn't participate in RDOF. That order "fails to explain how the Commission will bridge the connectivity gap that the Order leaves open by excluding the one provider that can rapidly accomplish this goal, while approving RDOF 'winners' that have already acknowledged they will not be able to do so," SpaceX said. Voting against the order were the two minority commissioners. Commissioner Brendan Carr posted on X that the decision was "regulatory harassment of Elon Musk." In his dissent, Commissioner Nathan Simington said he "was disappointed by this wrongheaded decision when it was first announced, but the majority today lays bare just how thoroughly and lawlessly arbitrary it was. If this is what passes for due process and the rule of law at the FCC, then this agency ought not to be trusted with the adjudicatory powers Congress has granted it and the deference that the courts have given it."