DOGE Track (beta)

Department of Transportation

subagencies: FAA

DOGE became embedded early at the DOT, due to criticism of the FAA in the wake of a deadly air collision outside of National Airport. While Secretary Sean Duffy had been an early advocate of DOGE, recent reports described him as screaming at Elon Musk about the damage caused by DOGE’s rampant firing of probationary workers and pushing the Fork in the Road. An already understaffed cohort of air-traffic controllers has been pushed to the breaking point, and it’s DOGE’s fault. Meanwhile, potential interference to redirect a communications contract to Starlink has astounded ethics experts for its audacity.

Positions

Position Date Person
DOT
2/XX
 2/XX appointed Senior Advisor «start date unknown but ProPublica says “early February”» Politico
FAA
2/16-6/02
Left DOGE
 2/16-6/02
Left DOGE
 appointed Senior Advisor, Office of the Administrator (NTE 2025-02-20) Wash. Post
FAA
2/16-6/02
Left DOGE
 2/16-6/02
Left DOGE
 appointed Senior Advisor, Office of the Administrator (NTE 2025-02-20) Wash. Post
FAA
2/16-6/02
Left DOGE
 2/16-6/02
Left DOGE
 appointed Senior Advisor, Office of the Administrator (NTE 2025-02-20) Wash. Post
FAA
2/16-6/02
Left DOGE
 2/16-6/02
Left DOGE
 appointed Senior Advisor, Office of the Administrator (NTE 2025-02-20) Wash. Post
DOT
c.5/07
 c.5/07 appointed Senior Advisor to the Secretary, Office of the Secretary ProPublica
No Start Date Known
DOT Ankur Bansal

Events

Agency Date Event
2/05
 2/05
Elon Musk promises that DOGE will make rapid upgrades to airline systems after outage of NOTAM alerting system occur.
 NYT
2/10
 2/10
The NOTAM system at the FAA has its name changed from Notice to Air Missions back to its original name of Notice to Airmen.
 press release
2/17
 2/17
Four SpaceX engineers at FAA are granted ethics waivers and designated as Special Government Employees, but must recuse from decisions affecting SpaceX.
 Bloomberg
2/18
 2/18
DOGE staffer Ted Malaska declares that SpaceX is the only company able to complete a communications network contract already awarded to Verizon. He also hreatens to report the names of anybody blocking his work directly to Musk.
 Bloomberg
April 2025
4/11
 4/11
Luke Farritor uses his admin access to lock out all government officials at multiple agencies from using grants.gov to issue new grants. Instead, all grants must now be sent to a new email address which will be reviewed by DOGE staffers before grants can be posted.
 Wash. Post
4/25
 4/25
DOGE staff assigned to the FAA have reportedly enlisted government staff to work on a secret communications project named “Project Lift,” requiring them to sign NDAs. It is rumored to be about incorporating Starlink into FAA projects.
 Rolling Stone
June 2025
6/02
 6/02
In the wake of Elon Musk’s exit from DOGE, the four SpaceX engineers that have been working secretly in the FAA – Ted Malaska, Sam Smeal, Thomas Kiernan and Brady Glantz – are all immediately removed from the agency. The Post reports that some agency staff went for post-work drinks to celebrate the banishment of the DOGE team.
 Wash. Post
6/26
 6/26
In an email to agency partners, the operators of grants.gov declare that the revised mechanism added in April that routed all Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) through a DOGE email address has been reversed. Instead, agencies are to return to using the tool like that did previously. This doesn’t necessarily mean that DOGE or political appointees will not be reviewing grants, but they have no longer locked other users out of the system.
 Wash. Post
Labor
EPA