Sean Duffy, secretary of transportation and former cast member of MTV’s The Real World, sent a vague tweet declaring that Elon Musk‘s “DOGE team” will “plug in to help upgrade our aviation system” at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Few additional details were provided, and Musk quote-tweeted that post adding, almost gleefully, that “FAA‘s primary aircraft safety system failed for several hours!”
While it’s true that the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system did experience a temporary outage, the backup systems were operating normally during the downtime —per Meritalk.
Earlier, Donald Trump falsely blamed the fatal collision in D.C. on Diveristy, Equity and Inclusion, making no mention of how he himself fired the entirety of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee.
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
Gustaf Kilander added some important background on Elmo’s antics, and what’s powering this grievance-led “administration” (it’s a disgraced mafia orchestrating a coup, but whatever):
Musk has had a difficult relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration since at least 2023, according to Time. The FAA accused Musk’s company Space X last September of having used a launch control room for one of its missions which had not been approved by the agency. The FAA ended up fining SpaceX for that and a number of other violations more than $600,000. Following Musk’s objections, former FAA administrator Michael Whitaker announced that the FAA would delay a scheduled launch of a SpaceX rocket.
So yes, in very real ways Leon is “Secretary of Retribution” and probably further explains why Donald is so fond of his extra-curricular (many say, correctly, “illegal”) activities. One other thing to note here: Elon’s TechBro-pal Pete Thiel, via Palantir, was “chosen by FAA to provide data analytics to enhance the agency’s modernization of aviation safety” in 2021.
In other words, Musk isn’t the first external, Big Tech “luminary” to try his or her hand at “upgrading” FAA’s systems.
