Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired about 30 members of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in February, and many of them were part of a department that assesses the risks of self-driving cars, according to the Financial Times.
One worker laid off from the NHTSA’s so-called “office of vehicle automation safety” told the FT that DOGE’s actions could “weaken NHTSA’s ability to understand self-driving technologies.” Another worker said it’d be “ironic” if the firings would slow down Tesla’s plans for autonomous vehicles.
The firings also came just months after the NHTSA released a new framework that could ease regulation on self-driving cars, but in exchange, companies would need to share more data with the regulator.
