Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was invited to overhaul America's air traffic control system in early 2025 but largely failed to deliver, leaving the network more fragile and clearing the way for Peter Thiel's company Palantir to step in instead. Recent failures underline the problem: a two-hour radar and communications outage at the Minneapolis Air Route Traffic Control Center on 6 August 2026 disrupted over 1,100 flights, while two days earlier a missed communication meant an aircraft was cleared for takeoff dangerously close to President Trump's Marine One helicopter.

Rather than delivering the "rapid safety upgrades" Musk promised, DOGE's main tangible impact was cutting 400 FAA staff, including maintenance technicians at 18 air traffic control centres, while wrongly blaming Verizon for the agency's communications issues and failing to install Starlink as its telecoms provider. The fallout made 2025 the worst year for US flight delays in over a decade, with roughly one in four flights delayed, diverted or cancelled (1.7 million disruptions), tarmac delays up 64%, and 2.4 million checked bags lost or damaged. In July 2025 the One Big Beautiful Bill Act allocated $12.5 billion to overhaul air traffic control, including about $5 billion for software, and with DOGE's efforts falling short, the administration has now turned to Palantir — already deeply embedded in FAA systems — as a leading contender to take over.