Sean Duffy Breaks Down Clash with Elon Musk: ‘We Are Not Going to Fire Air Traffic Controllers’
Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy opened up about a spat he had with Elon Musk while the billionaire was working with DOGE and pushed him to fire air traffic controllers.
Duffy joined Miranda Devine on Pod Force One where Devine brought up reports about the clash between Duffy and Musk over firing air traffic controllers. According to a March New York Times report, Duffy and Musk had a back-and-forth during a cabinet meeting in which Duffy took issue with members of DOGE pushing him to fire air traffic controllers, something Musk reportedly told him was a “lie.”
Duffy confirmed there was a disagreement, but insisted that media reports played it up. The Transportation Secretary said the exchange with Musk occurred before the January D.C. crash that left dozens dead.
“I think it might not have been intentional, might have been ham-handed by some of the requests that were made by DOGE, but my position was, we are not going to fire air traffic controllers,” Duffy said after revealing he “got along well enough” with Musk.
Duffy made clear he would not fire “safety critical positions.”
“Elon — or no one else — is the secretary. I am. The Senate confirmed me,” he said.
Duffy said he acknowledged there was “fat” to be cut and ways to be more efficient, but firing critical positions was not in the cards.
“We had a little back and forth, but we got along very well after that,” he said. “I think the papers made it a bigger deal than it was.”
Duffy said he would have been “slaughtered” if he followed the firing advice, emphasizing that it is the heads of departments that ultimately need to make such decisions.
“Elon is an amazing innovator. He’s creative. And again, there’s a lot to learn from him, but I run this department, and again, I didn’t want someone on the outside trying to tell me to fire people,” he said. “Had I done that, had I actually fired controllers, oh my, think what the liberal media would do to me. I would be slaughtered. We didn’t, thank God.”
Watch the clip above.
