Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is working with President Donald Trump to make the federal government more efficient, is now calling on retired air traffic controllers to come back to work.
Musk shared his plea for the retirees in a post on his social media site X on Thursday. The remark comes as the nation faces a shortage of air traffic controllers and after several weeks of new near-misses and fatal accidents at airports across the country.
“There is a shortage of top-notch air traffic controllers. If you have retired, but are open to returning to work, please consider doing so,” Musk wrote.
The plea also comes after Trump’s administration moved to fire hundreds of workers from the Federal Aviation Administration last month. The layoffs included some who were recently hired for the FAA radar and landing and navigational aid maintenance.
Transportation Secretary Sea Duffy defended those firings last month, saying that they did not cut any air traffic controllers. Duffy also said that less than 400 workers were let go amid the agency’s push to comply with Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal government.
Audacy previously covered the shortage of air traffic controllers, highlighting a report from CBS News, which analyzed current staffing data from the Federal Aviation Administration and found that more than 90% of the country’s airport terminal towers are understaffed.
The focus on air traffic controllers and aviation safety comes after 67 died when an American Airlines plane collided with a Black Hawk helicopter as it was landing at Reagan Washington National Airport. Days later, a medical flight crashed in Pennsylvania, killing all who were on board.
In the weeks since, there have been several close calls at airports across the country, including one last week where a collision almost occurred on the runway at Chicago’s Midway Airport.
A week before that, a flight from Minneapolis to Toronto flipped while landing in Canada, leaving many shocked as the plane rolled after landing. The shocking incident was also caught on camera from several different angles.
During an interview in early February, Duffy said he was planning on offering air traffic controllers an option to keep working past the current mandatory retirement age. The move would hopefully help staffing levels as workers would be able to continue, cutting out the process of hiring and training new workers.
“I’m going to make an offer to air traffic controllers to let them stay longer. That’s my authority. I can offer them the chance to stay longer, past the mandatory retirement age of 56, pay them more, give them a bonus, keep them on the job, make the system safer, alleviate the pressure on the controllers,” Duffy said on Fox News. “They will make more money.”
Trump has also vowed to help revamp and address the nation’s air safety systems.
“I think that’s going to be used for good,” Trump said during a National Prayer Breakfast. “We’re going to do a great computerized system for our control towers. Brand new, not pieced together, obsolete.”
“We spent billions and billions of dollars trying to renovate an old broken system instead of just saying, ‘Let’s cut it loose, and let’s spend less money and build a great system,’” he added.