Summary
Elon Musk called on retired air traffic controllers to return to work, citing a shortage amid heightened scrutiny of the FAA under Trump’s second term.
With DOT Secretary Sean Duffy’s support, Musk’s DOGE attempts to “upgrade” aviation systems despite recent FAA job cuts.
The AP reports fired employees included radar and navigational aid maintenance personnel, though Duffy insisted no “critical safety personnel” were terminated.
Musk’s appeal comes amid increased public concern over recent aviation incidents, though experts consider the uptick an anomaly.
Well if it isn’t the consequences of his own actions.
Honestly, this one’s not even completely his own fault. Standard bureaucratic ossification has been fucking up ATC staffing for years now. The pay is low, the qualifications are steep, and the responsibility and stress is insane. Why would someone do that? And so, people don’t. And, on top of them, management from both the business and political sides simply doesn’t give a fuck about safety or morale.
The levels of traffic were just recently increased in that DC airspace where the plane hit the helicopter, and at the time, a bunch of qualified people were trying to raise the alarm that some bad shit was going to happen if they stuffed more aircraft into an already overcrowded area. No one in a position to make any of the decisions cared, and they did it anyway. That all happened before Trump and Elmo came into the picture.
Of course, it is true that their own actions have produced some additional consequences now. They’ve fired a bunch more people and demotivated all the existing or prospective ones pretty much as much as it is possible to do. And, as much as the existing systems are aging and in need of some modernization, it’s absolutely guaranteed that whatever Musk does to “improve” them will make them even worse. All I’m saying is that he didn’t entirely create the bad situation he is now about to amplify tenfold.
100%. There was a shortage of traffic controllers before the firings even began, this only exacerbated a bad situation.
Someone at all familiar with the status of ATC staffing who isn’t a complete idiot would clearly not have exacerbated this situation.
I’m a developer - I’d even classify myself as pretty far to the “move fast and break things” end of the spectrum. But I’m a senior developer because I ask questions and understand things and write tests to confirm that understanding and prove a new system correct before fucking breaking them. Once that’s done I’ve totally got a sledgehammer in hand and am wildly swinging it around to rebuild it cleaner but, critically, we do this in a development environment.
This fucker is hot fixing production without a fucking clue how anything works. He’s in a little fucking bubble where the only opinions allowed in are “Elon is a genius” and he’s drinking the fucking Kool-aid. I’ve seen executives like that and the only correct response is to jump fucking ship.
Fucked around ✅
Found out 👈
Not really, tbh. He’s pretty clearly just doing as much damage as he possibly can. This whole “Oooh whoopsie, we did a bad, does anyone want their job back?” shit is pure show to give himself some plausible deniability to keep the guillotines at bay.
If you look at what’s happening through the lens of his goal being malice, and ignore the “ooooops!” pony show, what you see is a man who’s hamstrung an entire nation with literally zero consequences.
There’s also the “fire everyone, then hire them back at a reduced salary while leaning on the fact that they care about preventing deaths enough to take the deal” aspect.
I wonder if he regrets this one though. If it becomes dangerous to fly he’d have to travel on the ground like a peasant
He’d sooner take the oligarch route and privatize the FAA, fill it with his own loyalists, then give his flights priority wherever he goes, including whatever private aviation business (e.g. FedEx clone) he wants to push.
Gotta fly the old fashioned way, VFR.
IIRC the FAA layoffs did not include air traffic controllers, so I don’t think that he was involved with that.