SpaceX engineers brought on at FAA after probationary employees were fired
https://www.wired.com/story/faa-doge-elon-musk-space-x/In September, the FAA proposed $633,000 in fines following two 2023 incidents in which SpaceX allegedly did not follow its license requirements, violating regulations. Responding to an X user posting about the penalties, Musk wrote, "The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!" Shortly afterward, Musk called for FAA head Mike Whitaker to resign.
In January, more than three years before his term was due to end, Whitaker did resign."
Musk also threatened litigation.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/17/elon-musk-says-spacex-will-s...
Whitaker's replacement has promised to reexamine the SpaceX matter.
https://www.surfrider.org/news/surfrider-sues-faa-to-address...
This is outright corruption. These ghouls don't even attempt to hide the conflicts of interest.
Musk is hiring employees from his own company SpaceX, using a backdoor to avoid vetting, to an agency that regulates his own company, to change critical safety systems. After the secretary of that department outright lied about what's happening.
Meanwhile contracts continue to be awarded to SpaceX with no attempt from Musk to recuse himself or separate the conflict of interest.
> By the time these posts were made, though, according to sources who were granted anonymity because they fear retaliation, SpaceX engineers were already being onboarded at the agency under Schedule A, a special authority that allows government managers to “hire persons with disabilities without requiring them to compete for the job,” according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Depth of reporting is not accuracy, and there may be a bit of illusion here.
For instance, the bit you cite (their reporting on Schedule A) is a great example of lazy reporting for a cheap "gotcha" to amplify ragebait with misinformation -- the Wired reporters either couldn't be bothered to look up the various forms of Schedule A hiring (in this case, Schedule A (r) [0] vs. Schedule A (u) [1]), or they are intentionally mis-reporting in order to add more outrage. Only section U deals with disabilities -- section R deals with temporary hiring.
I think you and I are walking away with very different impressions of the quality of Wired's "depth of coverage".
[0]: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-5/part-213/subject-group-...
[1]: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-5/part-213/subject-group-...
Mars, baby. You ain't seen nothin yet.
I noted downvotes of displeasure. Rebuttal would be more informative. Focus on "cost savings" and doing away with "corruption". Bonus points for connecting dot$ between El Doge's various businesses and the MIC.
Just to add to the irony, that type of authority is exactly the type of "DEI" practice that Elon/Trump is railing against as "corrupt/Marxist".
Piling on corruption under the guise of rooting out corruption. It's an old trick used by dictators in other countries.
I'm not sure how a strategy of "ignore it and don't mention it" is going to perform better than "call it out"...
Though obviously a large amount of people don't believe anything except what they want to hear.
It was better when folks in the FAA tried to hide their conflicts of interest!
>When questioned about potential conflicts between Musk’s private business interests and his government work, Trump said: "He won’t be involved."
>Musk echoed the sentiment, saying “I’ll recuse myself."
>Trump added that “if there's a conflict, he won't be involved. I mean, I wouldn't want that, and he won't want it."