Trump Team Wants To Stop Collecting Safety Data On Tesla Crashes

Donald Trump hasn’t taken the oath of office yet but his team has already gifted billionaire donor Elon Musk. The rest of us could be footing the bill with our lives.

Reuters has the scoop about the possible elimination of safety data, a change that would mostly benefit Musk and Tesla:

The Trump transition team wants the incoming administration to drop a car-crash reporting requirement opposed by Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA.O), according to a document seen by Reuters, a move that could cripple the government’s ability to investigate and regulate the safety of vehicles with automated-driving systems.

Musk, the world's richest person, spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump get elected president in November. Removing the crash-disclosure provision would particularly benefit Tesla, which has reported most of the crashes – more than 1,500 – to federal safety regulators under the program. Tesla has been targeted in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigations, including three stemming from the data.

The recommendation to kill the crash-reporting rule came from a transition team tasked with producing a 100-day strategy for automotive policy. The group called the measure a mandate for "excessive" data collection, the document seen by Reuters shows.

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