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This depends heavily on our definitions of corrupt.
If you mean "corrupt" in the sense of what is prosecutable under current SCOTUS interpretations of corruption statutes, it's almost impossible that any deal would qualify because Musk's companies do produce things that serve some legitimate government purpose.
If you mean "corrupt" in the sense that the word is used colloquially to refer to someone receiving an obvious benefit that's outsized compared to the delivery, I would consider it an object-level question of what was contracted, what was delivered, and what was the price.
If you mean "corrupt" in the sense of political patronage, I would agree that it is this for anything where Musk's company isn't the clear best choice. Of course he's going to get the benefit of the doubt.
If you mean "corrupt" in the sense that a libertarian might use it, I would say anything above roughly $37 is a corrupt relationship because Musk has always relied on the government for massive grants and subsidies for projects of questionable utility.
Truth be told, my gut instinct is towards the latter. I remain unconvinced that Teslas are anything other than silly toys with superficial environmental signaling value. My inclination is to distrust large programs directed at friends of the government. But really, if pressed on the matter, I would lean towards the patronage model as a more realistic way to think about the world. Patronage seems very important to understanding how power structures actually work, is so ordinary in history that complaining about it being corrupt is about as useful as bitching about nepotism, and I don't really even have that much of an objection to it
On the other side, I think a lot of the issue here is about this being as much a jobs program as a broadband program. Satellite broadband doesn’t employ a lot of backhoe drivers.
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Have you drive a Tesla? I own one and they are great cars (and honestly not that expensive). I don’t think they are anymore a toy compared to any other car. It truly was a feat building a new freaking car company and yes they did benefit from subsidies but so did a lot of other EV cars that failed. Musk is great at building companies.
Similarly SpaceX gets a lot of government contracts. So does Boeing. One is a good company. The other is Boeing.
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This would be more or less my definition, reversed as the case may be.
I'm deeply uncomfortable with government contractors lobbying openly, in the same way that it's often argued that people on welfare shouldn't be able to vote. Which of course becomes an argument about what is a government contractor and what is welfare.
But Musk, here, feels like a special case, in either direction, and I don't really have an answer other than being deeply uncomfortable.
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