The TL;DR in one quote:
Job cuts at the US traffic safety regulator instigated by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency disproportionately hit staff assessing self-driving risks, hampering oversight of technology on which the world’s richest man has staked the future of Tesla.
An interesting quote from a Tesla manager:
“Letting Doge fire those in the autonomous division is sheer madness—we should be lobbying to add people to NHTSA,” said one manager at Tesla. They “need to be developing a national framework for AVs, otherwise Tesla doesn’t have a prayer for scale in FSD or robotaxis.”
Boeing (just one example) has been pushing for lower or self regulation for a while.
That was part of what led to the 737-MAX issue:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-pushed-faa-to-arelax-737-max-certification-requirements-for-crew-alerts/
Airlines concerned for safety will be moving away from Boeing if the deregulation continues.
The libertarian BS is going to set America back a century - in many respects.