SpaceX Wants Louisiana’s BEAD Plan Reversed
The satellite broadband provider said the same of Virginia's spending plan.
WASHINGTON, August 18, 2025 – Elon Musk’s SpaceX is bashing another state the company thinks is shortchanging its satellite broadband service.
The company said in a comment submitted to Louisiana’s broadband office that the National Telecommunications and Information administration should reject the state’s final spending plan under the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. SpaceX said under new rules handed down by the Trump administration, more of its bids should have won out against fiber providers.
“NTIA simply cannot approve the Final Proposal as it stands if the ‘Benefit of the Bargain’ remains the goal,” the company wrote. “Louisiana must revise its final proposal to appropriately consider the applications received, or NTIA must reject its Final Proposal.”
Musk’s rocket company said the same thing in a recent comment on Virginia’s final proposal, which was put up for comment earlier this month.
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The comment, submitted Friday, was obtained by Broadband Breakfast Monday via a records request. Louisiana’s public records office said it was still compiling the other public comments the state received on its plan.
Louisiana’s broadband office didn’t comment. The state was allocated $1.36 billion in BEAD funding, nearly $500 million of which would be spent on deployment under its new plan, a draft of which was put up for public comment Aug. 8.
SpaceX submitted similar comments on the draft of Virginia’s final proposal that the state put up for public comment last week. Getting NTIA to sign off on a state’s final proposal, which includes its tentative grant winners, is that last step before a state can begin funding projects under BEAD.
Like in Virginia, the satellite operator said it bid on nearly every eligible location in Louisiana. Louisiana’s final plan would get fiber to about 80 percent of those eligible locations, with low-earth orbit satellite, all from SpaceX, serving about 8 percent.
The Trump administration issued new rules for the program in June, rescinding federal approval of Louisiana’s spending plan and those of two other states. The new policy eliminated an explicit preference for fiber and made it easier for other technologies like satellite to compete on the basis of deployment cost, where fiber is at a disadvantage.
High deployment costs were repeatedly cited by Lutnick as a prime reason for changing the rules and requiring another slate of bids. Louisiana said it delivered on that, taking its average per-location cost down from $5,300 to $3,900 and refusing to give more than $8,000 in support for any single location.
While the state would still get fiber to the majority of its eligible homes and businesses, 80 percent is down from the 95 percent of locations that would have gotten fiber under its Biden-era plan.
States also have had informal contact with NTIA throughout the project selection process, and are required to meet with the agency before posting drafts of their final proposals for public comment. That implies that NTIA had already been satisfied with Louisiana and Virginia’s outcomes, according to New Street Research policy adviser Blair Levin.
“If NTIA agreed with the arguments that SpaceX is now making, we think it would have already prevented Virginia and Louisiana from going down the path they did in terms of granting funds to wireline providers,” he wrote in an investor note Friday.
Levin said regardless of whether NTIA sides with states or SpaceX, the other side might consider suing, but any litigation would have a low chance of succeeding. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Despite the public sparring over Republicans’ budget bill, Musk donated $15 million to super PACs supporting Trump and congressional Republicans in June. Musk was a major donor to President Donald Trump and served as a close advisor until late May.
Priority broadband projects
At the heart of SpaceX’s complaints is how states determine what constitutes a priority broadband project. Priority applications get first consideration for any BEAD locations they bid on.
The Infrastructure Act, which created BEAD, defined a priority project as one that meets the program’s minimum speed and latency standards and can “easily scale speeds over time” to meet future connectivity needs and support 5G deployments. The Biden administration had determined that only applied to fiber, giving fiber providers first dibs if they could submit an application that states didn’t find egregiously expensive.
The Trump administration has now asked states to make the determinations themselves on an application-by-application basis, opening the door for technologies like satellite and fixed wireless to become priority projects in addition to fiber. When multiple priority bidders compete for the same location, state broadband offices must weigh deployment cost – where fiber is at a disadvantage heavily under the Trump administration’s new rules.
Louisiana treated SpaceX as a priority applicant for almost all the 10,327 locations where it won an award. The company’s letter Friday revealed it was denied priority status for 117,515 other homes and businesses.
“This is the exact same infrastructure and technology,” the company wrote. “further demonstrating the self-serving nature of Louisiana’s award decisions.”
In its draft final proposal, the broadband office said its evaluation took into account which parts of the state were ill-suited to wireless service because of tree cover, high population density, and other factors. Virginia said it used a similar analysis.
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