Aviation chiefs in the U.S. are ready to let DOGE head Elon Musk rip up the playbook and start again, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Duffy said on Fox’s Hannity show that he is ready to let the cost-cutting squad shape a new air traffic control system at “the speed of business, not bureaucracy,” because we are in dire need of an update. The move comes after the worst U.S. airline crash in almost 25 years last week, when a Blackhawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines plane carrying 64 people—killing them all, along with the chopper’s three crew.
Duffy’s comments to Sean Hannity come after he spoke at a conference of state Department of Transport officials on Wednesday. The Republican doubled down on his reasons for letting the rocket man get involved, telling the host that the Tesla and X chief thinks a new-look aviation system is possible in just 12 months.
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“Sean, I was talking to Elon. I said, ‘what can we do this in, Elon? Two and a half, three years, can we make this happen?’ And he was like, ‘No, no. Two and a half, three years. No. We could do this in one year’.”
And it appears that Duffy foresees Elon Musk’s troupe of DOGE upstarts being involved, too. “When you have these 22 year old young people who are smart and can engage and give us good advice, we’ll move at the speed of business as opposed to the speed of bureaucracy and government,” he said.
Duffy claimed that Democrats are just peeved by Musk’s involvement. “We’re using World War Two technology. And it should have been updated, you know, 10, 20, 30 years ago. And so, again, I think Democrats right now, they’re upset about Elon Musk.”
Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-N.Y.) said Musk has “no experience” in this field. “I think it’s petrifying to the American people, especially after we just suffered another horrific tragedy here in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “Now is not the time to put someone with zero experience in dealing with our national air traffic controllers into any position of authority.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), who sits on the Transportation Committee, took it one step further. “They’re gonna have a lot more plane crashes, and maybe the planes won’t be able to get off the ground,” he said.
But, Duffy added, involving Musk is a no brainer, due to his experience with space flight—and Donald Trump apparently agrees.
“I have had conversations with Donald Trump,” Duffy told Hannity. “He says, ‘listen, I want the best system in the world, the most technologically advanced system in the world. Talk to the best minds.’ So I’m going to go to The Hill, talk to the best minds. I’m going to go to industry, talk to the best minds. But the guy who launches rockets into space and catches them when they come back down, I sure as hell am going to talk to that guy, too. It’d be malpractice if I didn’t.”
He took another swipe at the “lefties” who “lose their mind when we’re going to move at the speed of Trump or Elon Musk.”
Musk has been been vocal in favor of getting involved.“With the support of President @realDonaldTrump, the @DOGE team will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system,” Musk said on X, as his unelected tentacles spread further into daily American life.
