type: timeline_event DOGE personnel began implementing layoffs at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in February 2025, cutting dozens of positions from the agency responsible for vehicle safety regulation and oversight of crash investigations. The Associated Press and Washington Post reported that the cuts fell heavily on engineers and safety specialists who conducted crash investigations and reviewed vehicle defect complaints—employees whose work directly affects decisions about recalls that protect American motorists. Tesla, Elon Musk's electric vehicle company, had been the subject of multiple ongoing NHTSA investigations into crashes involving its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems.
The conflict of interest was stark: Musk, in his capacity as leader of DOGE, was directing staffing reductions at the federal agency responsible for oversight of his own company's vehicles and autonomous driving technology. NHTSA had opened investigations into Tesla's driver assistance systems following crashes that killed drivers, and the agency's ability to conduct rigorous investigations of Tesla's technology depended on maintaining technical expertise in automotive engineering and crash analysis. Critics including former NHTSA officials and Democratic lawmakers argued that cutting NHTSA's staff would inevitably benefit Tesla by reducing the agency's capacity to conduct thorough investigations and issue recalls.
TechCrunch reported that DOGE's actions at NHTSA extended the pattern of Musk using his government role to weaken regulation of his own companies across multiple agencies. Simultaneously, DOGE personnel were reviewing NASA (which held billions in SpaceX contracts), the FCC (which regulated SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband), and other agencies with direct authority over Musk's business interests. The arrangement represented an unprecedented concentration of regulatory power in the hands of a private citizen with massive financial stakes in the outcomes of that regulation, and Democratic lawmakers filed formal ethics complaints arguing that Musk's activities violated conflict-of-interest principles even if technical legal loopholes allowed them to proceed.