Elon Musk and the plot to hijack America’s broadband

The $42.45 billion BEAD broadband program, designed to bridge America's digital divide, has been compromised by political interference and billionaire interests, with only a handful of promised beneficiaries receiving service after five years due to bureaucratic delays and recent policy changes that eliminated affordability protections. CIOs and IT leaders must recognize that public broadband infrastructure policy now directly impacts corporate network planning, vendor relationships, and digital equity initiatives, as satellite internet providers backed by tech moguls are positioning themselves as alternatives to traditional fiber deployment. Organizations should prepare for a fragmented broadband landscape with reduced government oversight and increased reliance on private providers, fundamentally shifting how enterprises approach network resilience, supply chain connectivity, and underserved market access.

Sean GonsalvesThe VergeJune 23, 20262 min read

At 9PM ET on the night of May 28th, a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket sat on the launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The craft was in the middle of a hot-fire test awaiting the arrival of Amazon Leo satellites, the first of 24 batches to be shuttled into low Earth orbit for an ambitious satellite internet venture. The effort was backed by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, leveraging a Biden-era law meant to address America's digital divide. But before the satellites even reached the launch site, Jeff Bezos' rocket exploded into a massive fireball, its wreckage left smoldering on the ground. It was an unintentionally pe … Read the full story at The Verge.