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Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has started slashing big chunks of the agencies that regulate at least two of his companies, Tesla (TSLA-5.05%) and Neuralink.
The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources briefed on the reductions, reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will cut 10% of its workforce, or between 70 and 80 people. That includes staff that worked on safety tests involving crash dummies, drunk driving and speeding, and safety grants.
The cuts also removed three out of about seven people in a new office dedicated to overseeing the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs), The Post reports. That will likely reduce oversight of the developing technology at a critical time, as dozens of companies, including Tesla, ramp up their efforts.
Google’s (GOOGL-2.61%) Waymo, Amazon’s (AMZN-3.00%) Zoox, and May Mobility are just a few of the firms working on autonomous cars. Others, such as Aurora Innovation and Waabi, are focused on self-driving trucks designed to haul cargo.
Tesla plans to launch a paid service using its cars equipped with the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology in Austin in June, which will serve as the first test of its ride-hail aspirations. Last October, Musk’s EV maker revealed a self-driving robotaxi, the Cybercab, with volume production scheduled to begin next year.
Musk has pledged to use DOGE to encourage a federal approach to AV regulations, rather than the state-by-state approach that companies currently face. The NHTSA currently allows companies to deploy just 2,500 self-driving vehicles each year. Changes to make deployment easier would either require bipartisan legislation or new rules issued through the agency.
“If the question is, will this affect the federal government’s ability to understand the safety case behind Tesla’s vehicles, then yes, it will,” a terminated engineer told The Post, calling the number of people in the federal government who understand AVs “almost nonexistent.”
Last year, the NHTSA launched safety investigations into Zoox, Waymo, and Ford Motor Co. (F-1.01%) over their respective driver assistance tech. Tesla has faced a number of investigations over its driver-assistance technology, including one launched just last month.
In April, the NHTSA said it linked Tesla’s Autopilot to more than 200 crashes and 29 deaths and had opened more than 50 special crash investigations into related vehicles. The latest investigation was opened in October after the agency identified four incidents where an FSD-equipped Tesla was involved in a crash.
Musk has denied accusations that there could be conflicts of interest stemming from his influence over the federal agencies regulating his companies as a result of his opaque government job. The White House has claimed that Musk is not officially leading DOGE, despite his clear role as the face of the group and President Donald Trump’s own comments.
“All of our actions are fully public,” Musk said recently. “So if you see anything, you say like, wait a second, hey Elon, that seems like, there’s a conflict there... it’s not like people are going to be shy about saying that.”
The cuts at the Transportation Department have also hit the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies. Employees of Musk’s SpaceX were brought on as senior advisers to the FAA following the cuts to help “make air travel safer,” Musk said. The SpaceX CEO repeatedly bashed the agency last year because it was, in his opinion, too slow to approve the company’s rocket launches.
At the Food and Drug Administration, workers at the agency’s office of neurological and physical medicine devices were recently cut, Reuters reports. That includes several staffers tasked with reviewing Musk’s brain chip startup Neuralink, which works on brain-computer interface devices. The FDA and the Department of Agriculture’s inspector general, who was removed from her post by Trump, were both investigating Neuralink.
DOGE has also taken aim at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency often referred to as the brainchild of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who Musk has often feuded with. The regulator was set to begin overseeing Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, as the company looks to start offering payment options similar to Venmo (PYPL-2.82%).
DOGE is also expected to begin recommending cuts at the Securities and Exchange Commission, which sued Musk last month over his purchase of Twitter and has repeatedly clashed with the billionaire. The agency famously went after Musk over a tweet claiming he would take Tesla private at $420 per share and that he had “funding secured.”