NHTSA’s self-driving safety staff reportedly ‘disproportionally affected’ by DOGE cuts

In Brief

The cuts that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency made at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in February “disproportionately affected” employees working on vehicle automation safety, according to The Financial Times.

That division was formed in 2023 and therefore included a number of staffers who were still in their initial probationary hiring period, which could have led to their firings, according to the report. About 30 people total were let go. But one of the workers who was fired, who is not named in the story, told the outlet that the DOGE cuts would “certainly weaken NHTSA’s ability to understand self-driving technologies.”

The cuts came just a few months ahead of Tesla launching its first-ever robotaxi service in Austin. Musk has claimed that his company will launch similar services in California and potentially other states by the end of the year — the latest in a long line of yet-unfilled promises about automated vehicle technology that the world’s richest man has made.