Top Democrat on Commerce panel says Musk’s work with FAA poses 'clear conflict'

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, has sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy raising concerns that Elon Musk’s involvement in reform of the Federal Aviation Administration poses a “clear conflict” given his stake in the company SpaceX.

“I’m sending a letter to Secretary Duffy. It’s a clear conflict of interest. Secretary Duffy should make sure that Mr. Musk is not part of the FAA air transportation system. He has been fined for violations,” Cantwell told reporters Thursday morning.

She pointed out that Musk pressured former FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker to resign on the day of President Trump’s inauguration, leaving the agency without a permanent leader shortly before an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kan., collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter at Reagan Washington National Airport, killing 67 people.  

The FAA under Whitaker had proposed $633,000 in fines against SpaceX for failing to follow its license requirements during two launches in 2023.

Cantwell said Musk “worked hard to get Mr. Whitaker — somebody who was approved 98-0, I think — out of the system.”

In a letter to Duffy released Thursday afternoon, Cantwell noted that she told Duffy in a recent meeting that she would work with him to modernize the FAA but raised her concern that the newly-confirmed Transportation secretary didn’t mention his intention to involve Musk in that work.

“When we spoke, you did not discuss your intention to involve Elon Musk in the FAA’s safety systems or process. It is a conflict of interest for someone whose company is regulated by the federal government to be involved in anything that affects his personal financial interest, his company, or his competitors,” Cantwell wrote.

The Washington senator wrote that the FAA has a legal responsibility for safety oversight of companies with commercial transportation licenses and therefore should not be influenced by Musk, whose rocket launches occupy that airspace.

“Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket launches share the airspace with commercial airplanes and the FAA has the responsibility for keeping the entire airspace safe. SpaceX has been fined by the FAA for failing to comply with specific requirements in its launch license,” she wrote.

She reiterated her concern that Musk “called for the firing of Mike Whitaker … because the FAA issued a fine against SpaceX for not following the rules.”

“We have ethics and recusal laws for a reason — to prevent corporate interference in protecting the public interest,” she argued.

Musk announced Wednesday that the Department of Government Efficiency, which he leads, will make “rapid safety upgrades” to air traffic control systems overseen by the FAA.

“With the support of President @realDonaldTrump, the @DOGE team will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system,” Musk wrote Wednesday on the social media site X, which he owns.

He cited a recent outage of the FAA’s Notice to Air Mission system as evidence of the need to upgrade its systems.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Thursday applauded Musk’s potential involvement in reforming the FAA.

“I’ve been advocating for a long time modernization of air traffic control. Our air traffic control technology is from the 1950s,” he told reporters.

“The fact that Elon Musk, one of the top technology CEOs on planet Earth, is available to bring his expertise and the expertise of world class engineers to bring air traffic control out of the 1950s and into the 21st century I think that is a real opportunity.”