Elon Musk as head of DOGE is a conflict of interest towards the FAA.

SpaceX has announced Feb. 28th as the intended next flight of Starship. But after the explosion in flight during flight 7, the FAA required a mishap investigation of the Starship. Normally, the FAA requires the mishap report prior being granted permission for the next flight. But after this announcement the FAA has said nothing. Certainly the mishap report has not been delivered since those are always made public by the FAA.

If the FAA allows this launch without requiring the mishap report beforehand this would be highly unusual. I’m suggesting the Elon Musk’s public announcements of firings of public employees has sent a chilling effect to the FAA. They are afraid to oppose him. Clearly though this would have an effect on public safety since SpaceX can now do anything they want and would not be subject to review by the FAA or any federal agency.

The same could be said in regards to SEC oversight of any of Elon’s companies. There have been very public disagreements between the SEC and Elon’s running of Tesla. As head of DOGE and control of federal employee firing, there can be a similar chilling effect on the SEC.

This has made apparent that conflicts of interest are rife with the arrangement of Elon as head of DOGE. Normally, as a government official, someone would be required to divest himself of any interest in for profit corporations or put his interests in trust so he has no input on the financial decisions on those companies. Clearly here though, there is no way Elon is going to divest himself of control of his companies. Then the present arrangement of him as head of DOGE is untenable.