Alex Wilcox’s Resume Gives No Signs He Is Equipped to Run the FAA 

All it takes is one bad apple to make its way into a governmental agency and ruin its credibility and effectiveness. The last two weeks show Americans that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needs a steady hand and good decision-making.  The selection of Alex Wilcox to serve as FAA Administrator would undermine an agency trying to correct course after the Biden administration and throw a wrench into the agency’s efforts to complete its growing to-do list. With a messy history — both personally and professionally — Wilcox is ill-fitted to lead an agency that now has the eyes of the country on it following the tragic crashes that occurred in January. In important ways, he is fundamentally out of step with President Trump’s agenda and has, moreover, proved that his judgment is profoundly questionable. 

It’s probable that not many people are familiar with Wilcox, but they have likely seen his airline, JSX, on the news or at their local airport. Wilcox has worked in the aviation industry for just about his whole career. While this likely caught the attention of the administration as they sifted through resumes, a peek under the hood shows that Wilcox was anything but a good businessman and company leader. For example, in 2015, a pilot working at JetSuite Air was fired for blowing the whistle about unsafe plane conditions. The pilot later sued Wilcox, the CEO at the time, after he was “severely reprimanded” and later suspended with pay. The Department of Labor and an administrative law ultimately ruled in favor of the pilot.

Blowing the whistle in this case could not have been easy, but was nevertheless critical considering human lives were at risk. But for Wilcox, this pilot’s concerns were a threat, and he chose to, or at least oversaw, his company’s retaliation. Wilcox showed early in his career that safety and security were his lowest priorities—an alarming reality for an industry committed to maintaining the highest safety standards.

The controversy and potential conflicts of interest swirling around Wilcox don’t stop there. 

Wilcox has a history of progressivism. He has a decades-long track record of donating to former Democratic presidential candidates and members of Congress, including ones that sit on influential transportation-related committees.  In 2024, conveniently, Wilcox stopped donating to Democrat lawmakers. 

It should come as no surprise that a registered Democrat and long-time donor has drunk the DEI-commitment cool-aid. In fact, Wilcox’s company embraced this movement so much that it received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2021 Corporate Equality Index for its corporate policies and workplace equality measures.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has taken considerable efforts to end DEI hiring, instead mandating that the federal government hire based on “merit, excellence, and intelligence.” This executive order was one of the first actions taken by President Trump on his first day in office, and it’s baffling that his administration would consider agency heads that harbor diametrically opposed positions on DEI and are proven champions of the movement.  

It’s worth asking what other anti-conservative positions Wilcox might harbor – positions that might manifest in his work at the FAA. Attempting to reverse the disastrous agenda of a Democratic administration with a Democrat heading a major agency raises obvious concerns. If the old saying that “personnel is policy” is true, hiring Wilcox is about as bad as it gets.

Wilcox’s life isn’t spotless outside of his business dealings, either. A history of arrests and allegations of abusive behavior and aggression also mar his personal record. Clearly, there is ample evidence that Wilcox is far from an ideal candidate to lead an administration tasked with ensuring the safety of the nation’s travelers.  

While the administration may believe it has found a promising new candidate to run the FAA, a Google search shows that someone didn’t do their homework and vet Wilcox properly. Especially at a time when everyone is unsettled by recent aviation tragedies, putting an ideologically misaligned administrator with faulty judgment and character into one of the most powerful roles in the transportation industry is exactly how you lose the trust of the American people.

David Williams is the president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. This was originally published as an op-ed in Inside Sources.