Transportation Secretary recalls clash with Elon Musk over air traffic controllers

President Donald Trump and former DOGE head Elon Musk made headlines earlier this year when a public feud erupted between the two billionaires.

Trump isn’t the only White House figure that Musk butted heads with, as another administration figure recently confirmed whispers about having a similar conflict. 

Duffy clashed with DOGE staffers over efforts to cut costs

According to the New York Post, that admission was made by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy during an interview with journalist Miranda Devine.

“I get along well enough with Elon,” Duffy was quoted as telling the reporter during a Wednesday appearance on her “Pod Force One” podcast.

“He has a number of equities that come through [the Department of Transportation],” Duffy continued, referring to Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla companies.

Duffy then went on to recount how he had clashed with DOGE staff members over their efforts to find cost savings at the Department of Transportation.

“We are not going to fire air controllers”

“I think it might not have been intentional, might have been ham-handed [like] some of the requests that were made by [the Department of Government Efficiency], but my position was, we are not going to fire air traffic controllers,” the secretary recalled.

“Safety critical positions are not going to be fired within the Department of Transportation. We can do things more efficiently … but we are not going to fire air controllers,” Duffy insisted.

“And so we had a little back and forth, [but] we got along very well after that. I think the papers made it a bigger deal than it was,” the Trump administration official noted.

“Elon is an amazing innovator,” Duffy noted. “He’s creative. And again, there’s a lot to learn from him, but I run this department, and again, I didn’t want someone on the outside trying to tell me to fire people.”

Duffy says Trump “couldn’t have been nicer” to Musk

“Had I done that, had I actually fired controllers, oh, my—think what the liberal media would do to me. I would be slaughtered,” he insisted. “We didn’t, thank God, but [this] is why, throughout government, you have to make sure that the secretaries are the ones who are driving the policy.”

In addition to recounting his own history with Musk, Duffy offered insight into a possible explanation for Musk’s break with Trump.

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