Trump Admin Planning to Drop Requirement for Tesla to Report Self-Driving Crashes

Yikes.

Non Disclose, Sir

President-elect Donald Trump doesn't want his newfound son and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to be caught up in pesky regulations and government scrutiny.

According to documents obtained by Reuters, the Trump transition team is looking to drop a federal car-cash reporting requirement — which could greatly undermine the government's efforts to investigate Tesla's infamous driver-assistance software.

Tesla's Autopilot software, particularly the misleadingly-named Full Self-Driving add-on, has been under heavy government scrutiny after being linked to hundreds of crashes and dozens of deaths.

So far, Tesla has reported more than 1,5000 crash reports to federal safety regulators, per Reuters.

But now that Trump, who has grown extremely close with Musk, is set to return to the White House in January, the rules requiring Tesla to be upfront about crashes involving its vehicles could soon vaporize.

Dismantling Rules

It's an especially pertinent topic now that Musk has bet the company's fate on the development of an autonomous ridehailing service. The company showed off a prototype "Cybercab" at an event earlier this year, with Musk promising to pump out countless robotaxis as soon as next year.

According to Reuters, Trump's transition team was tasked with devising a 100-day strategy for automotive policy, and identified the crash-reporting rule as "excessive" data collection.

It remains unclear whether Musk or Tesla played a direct role in coming up with these recommendations, but given the close relationship between the mercurial CEO and the president-elect, it's not exactly a stretch.

Meanwhile, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which has long been investigating crashes involving the car company's driver assistance software, told Reuters that the collected data was crucial to determine the tech's safety. Two former NHTSA staffers also argued that the requirement was pivotal in the regulator's investigations.

And it's not just Tesla. The NHTSA has collected data on more than 2,700 crashes through the requirement, involving six companies, four of which were involved in nine safety recalls.

During Tesla's third-quarter earnings call in October, Musk called for simpler federal rules governing the development of autonomous vehicles instead of relying on a patchwork of state laws.

Since then, Musk has been put in charge of a so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to slash federal spending, which could put him in a conflicted position to call for the dismantling of rules that inconvenience his own business interests.

Whether those actions will prove popular with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, however, remains to be seen — as the regulation of autonomous vehicles has historically been a bipartisan issue, and individual states will likely want a say in the matter as well.

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