The administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, Michael Whitaker, resigned from his position on January 20 after repeated demands from Elon Musk that he quit, leaving the agency without a Senate-confirmed leader during a major crisis in the wake of the D.C. plane crash.
Musk called for Whitaker’s resignation in September after the FAA chief proposed fining Musk’s company SpaceX over $600,000 in civil penalties for failing to follow license requirements during two launches in 2023. Whitaker told a congressional panel at the time that fines were “the only tool we have to get compliance on safety matters.”
The tech CEO and fascism enthusiast repeatedly attacked Whitaker from his X account, claiming in one post that the FAA was “harassing SpaceX.” Musk also replied to an X poster who said the FAA “should not exist” and attacked Whitaker for preventing his goal of colonizing Mars.
“The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!” Musk posted in a reply to Australian YouTuber Marcus House.
FAA administrators typically serve for a five-year term, but Whitaker only served for one year, replacing Trump appointee Stephen Dickson in 2022. Whitaker had been confirmed by a bipartisan 98–0 Senate vote in October 2023.
On Wednesday, a commercial American Airlines flight collided with an Army helicopter above Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., killing everyone on board both aircraft.
Since January 20, the head of the FAA has been deputy FAA administrator Chris Rocheleau, who was only sworn in last week, giving him a stiff learning curve early on the job.
When Whitaker announced in December that he would resign, he told FAA staff in an email, “The United States is the safest and most complex airspace in the world, and that is because of your commitment to the safety of the flying public.” Wednesday’s disaster will certainly raise questions as to whether something went wrong in air safety protocols and whether disruption at the agency contributed to the crash.
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