Musk Backs Florida Sen. Rick Scott for Majority Leader

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2024 – Billionaire Trump-ally Elon Musk and other Republicans are coalescing around Florida Senator Rick Scott as a potential candidate to lead the chamber.

Scott introduced a bill in April 2023 that would have removed the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program’s exemption from the Freedom of Information Act.

“​​This is not the government’s money, it is the hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers and they should know exactly how every cent is being spent,” he said in a statement at the time. 

Republican lawmakers have long criticized the Biden administration program, especially through election season, but Scott was largely quiet aside from leading last year’s effort to axe the FOIA exemption. 

As the owner of satellite ISP Starlink, Musk has an interest in BEAD. Program rules only allow states to fund satellite broadband when no fiber providers are interested in serving a given area, but the company has been talking with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in an effort to scoop up funds where it can. 

Some states have already fielded grant applications under the current rules, but analysts have speculated a GOP NTIA could somehow tweak its BEAD policies to effectively give Starlink a bigger slice of the pie. Trump himself expressed some frustration with the program’s fiber preference during his Joe Rogan appearance last month.

Still, a main reason for the coalescing around Scott has nothing to do with BEAD. Trump posted on X over the weekend that he wanted whoever took the Majority Leader spot to commit to making speedy appointments. Scott was the first to respond in the affirmative.

Senate Republicans are set to decide who will take the spot in a secret-ballot vote Wednesday.