'Big deal': Maddow warns Trump may bury Tesla autopilot crash probe as Musk cozies up

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow shined a light on one of the more controversial ways tech billionaire Elon Musk's close relationship with President-elect Donald Trump may be about to pay off: the shutdown of a massive federal investigation into his Tesla "autopilot" feature.

Since Musk rolled out the feature to paying drivers around Thanksgiving of 2022, the program has faced scrutiny over a series of crashes that allegedly happened while the cars were in full self-driving mode, Maddow said. That includes an eight-car pileup in a tunnel in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"Just a few months later, the news outlet The Intercept, obtained video that showed that accident as it happened," Maddow said. "It turns out it was a Tesla whose owner says the car was in full self-driving mode and the car just randomly braked super hard in the middle of the tunnel."

Over the next couple of years, Maddow said, the government started gathering crash report data — and forming a criminal investigation.

"Tesla already discussed in an SEC filing that it had received federal subpoenas about information for his full self-driving mode and autopilot mode. Then, just a few weeks ago, the government announced the opening of a formal federal investigation of Tesla's full self-driving mode in more than 2 million Teslas. More than 2 million cars. And that's a big deal."

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Unfortunately, Maddow noted, that happened just a few weeks before the election — in which Trump secured another term, in part thanks to the help of Musk and his super PAC that handled voter outreach.

"And so what happens now to anybody who is unsettled by the idea of a robot-controlled car driving itself into a nearby fire engine full of firefighters?" asked Maddow. "Or a robot-controlled car slamming on its brakes without warning in the middle of a crowded tunnel full of cars going 55 miles an hour while people are all driving to go see family on Thanksgiving Day? What happens to anybody who might have those kinds of concerns? Reuters headline, quote, 'Exclusive: Trump team wants to scrap car-crash reporting rule.'"

"The Trump transition has apparently surveyed the landscape of public policy in the United States of America and has decided, you know what really needs to go? What needs to go as a matter of priority is this thing that we've had for a few years now where car companies have to report it when their car is on autopilot and it crashes into something," said Maddow. "That's the new priority, apparently."

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