A team from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will review operations at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), according to Reuters.
Reuters reported on May 21, 2025, that a spokesperson from the NTSB confirmed that DOGE team members had recently been assigned to look over the independent US federal agency.
DOGE was officially established in January 2025, with Elon Musk arguing that the department was needed to reduce wasteful government spending and enhance transparency.
In March 2025, the NTSB chair, Jennifer Homendy, defended the work of the agency as government departments were slashing staff as part of DOGE cutbacks.
“The NTSB runs lean; we always have. We have just 430 employees to carry out our mission and are authorized by Congress to go up to 450, though we would need significantly more than that to truly be fully staffed,” said Homendy .
The NTSB said that the agency had been given an “exemption from the deferred resignation program” that led to federal employees resigning and continued to have “support from the administration”.
Homendy will be hoping that any review conducted by DOGE will not lead to a cut in staffing levels or a reduction in funding.
The DOGE review comes at a time when the agency is still investigating the crash between a Blackhawk helicopter and a PSA Airlines in Washington that killed 64 people.
Other ongoing high-profile investigations include the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 that lost a door plug shortly after takeoff on January 5, 2024.
Homendy has previously said that for the NTSB to carry out its work effectively it “must have a fully trained workforce ready to respond to more than 1300 new accidents per year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”.
