Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has now slashed jobs at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Included in the cuts was a team dedicated to overseeing safety in autonomous vehicles.
“It was just very jarring to go from saving lives one day to being locked out of your computer the next,” said one terminated employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid hurting his prospects of finding a new job.
“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,” said one terminated engineer. “The amount of people in the federal government who are able to understand this adequately is very small. Now it’s almost nonexistent.”
