WASHINGTON>> Elon Musk has long railed against the U.S. government, saying a crushing number of federal investigations and safety programs have stymied Tesla, his electric car company, and its efforts to create fleets of robotaxis and other self-driving automobiles.

Now, Musk’s close relationship with President Donald Trump means many of those federal headaches could vanish within weeks or months.

On the potential chopping block: crash investigations into Tesla’s partially automated vehicles; a Justice Department criminal probe examining whether Musk and Tesla have overstated their cars’ self-driving capabilities; and a government mandate to report crash data on vehicles using technology like Tesla’s Autopilot. The consequences of such actions could prove dire, say safety advocates who credit the federal investigations and recalls with saving lives.

“Musk wants to run the Department of Transportation,” said Missy Cummings, a former senior safety adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “I’ve lost count of the number of investigations that are underway with Tesla. They will all be gone.”

Within days of Trump taking office, the White House and Musk began waging an unbridled war against the federal government — freezing spending and programs while sacking a host of career employees, including prosecutors and government watchdogs typically shielded from such brazen dismissals without cause.

The actions have sparked outcries from legal scholars who say the Trump administration’s actions are without modern-day precedent and are already upending the balance of power in Washington.

The Trump administration has not yet declared any actions that could benefit Tesla or Musk’s other companies. However, snuffing out federal investigations or jettisoning safety initiatives would be an easier task than their assault on regulators and the bureaucracy.

Investigations into companies like Tesla can be shut down overnight by the new leaders of agencies. And safety programs created through an agency order or initiative — not by laws passed by Congress or adopted through a formal regulatory process — can also be quickly dissolved by new leaders. Unlike many of the dismantling efforts that Trump and Musk have launched in recent weeks, stalling or killing such probes and programs would not be subject to legal challenges.

“Trump’s election, and the bromance between Trump and Musk, will essentially lead to the defanging of a regulatory environment that’s been stifling Tesla,” said Daniel Ives, a veteran Wall Street technology and automobile industry analyst.

Musk’s empire

Among Musk’s businesses, the federal government’s power over Tesla to investigate, order recalls and mandate crash data reporting is perhaps the most wide-ranging. However, the ways the Trump administration could quickly ease up on Tesla also apply in some measure to other companies in Musk’s sprawling business empire.

A host of Musk’s other businesses — such as his aerospace company SpaceX and his social media company X — are subjects of federal investigations.

Musk’s businesses are also intertwined with the federal government, pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars each year in contracts. SpaceX, for example, has secured nearly $20 billion in federal funds since 2008 to ferry astronauts and satellites into space. Tesla, meanwhile, has received $41.9 million from the U.S. government, including payment for vehicles provided to some U.S. embassies.

Proposed actions will help Tesla

The White House did not respond to questions about how it would handle investigations and government oversight involving Tesla or other Musk companies. A spokesman for the transition team said last month that the White House would ensure that DOGE and “those involved with it are compliant with all legal guidelines and conflicts of interest.”

In the weeks before Trump took office on Jan. 20, the president-elect’s transition team recommended changes that would benefit the billionaire and his car company, including scrapping the federal order requiring carmakers to report crash data involving self-driving and partially automated technology.

The action would be a boon for Tesla, which has reported a vast majority of the crashes that triggered a series of investigations and recalls.

The transition team also recommended shelving a $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric vehicle purchases, something Musk has publicly called for.

“Take away the subsidies. It will only help Tesla,” Musk wrote in a post on X as he campaigned and raised money for Trump in July.

Auto industry experts say the move would have a nominal impact on Tesla — by far the largest electric vehicle maker in the U.S. — but have a potentially devastating impact on its competitors in the EV sector since they are still struggling to secure a foothold in the market.

Musk did not respond to requests for comment. Before the election, he posted a message on X, saying he had never asked Trump “for any favors, nor has he offered me any.”

Those affected by Tesla crashes worry about lax oversight

People whose lives have been forever changed by Tesla crashes fear that dangerous and fatal accidents may increase if the federal government’s investigative and recall powers are restricted.

They say they worry that the company may otherwise never be held accountable for its failures, like the one that took the life of 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon.

The college student was on a date with her boyfriend, gazing at the stars on the side of a rural Florida road, when they were struck by an out-of-control Tesla driving on Autopilot — a system that allows Tesla cars to operate without driver input. The car had blown through a stop sign, a flashing light and five yellow warning signs, according to dashcam video and a police report.

Benavides Leon died at the scene; her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, suffered injuries but survived. A federal investigation determined that Autopilot in Teslas at this time was faulty and needed repairs.

“We, as a family, have never been the same,” said Benavides Leon’s sister, Neima. “I’m an engineer, and everything that we design and we build has to be by important codes and regulations. This technology cannot be an exception.”

“It has to be investigated when it fails,” she added. “Because it does fail.”

The small safety agency in Musk’s crosshairs

The federal agency that appears to have enjoyed the most success in changing Tesla’s behavior is NHTSA, an organization of about 750 staffers that has forced the company to hand over crash data and cooperate in its investigations and requested recalls.

“NHTSA has been a thorn in Musk’s side for over the last decade, and he’s grappled with almost every three-letter agency in the Beltway,” said Ives, the Wall Street analyst who covers the technology sector and automobile industry. “That’s all created what looks to be a really big soap opera in 2025.”

Musk has repeatedly blamed the federal government for impeding Tesla’s progress and creating negative publicity with recalls of his cars after its self-driving technology malfunctions or crashes.

“The word ‘recall’ should be recalled,” Musk posted on Twitter (now X) in 2014. Two years ago, he posted, “The word ‘recall’ for an over-the-air software update is anachronistic and just flat wrong!”

Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, said some investigations might continue under Trump, but a recall is less likely to happen if a defect is found.

As with most car companies, Tesla’s recalls have so far been voluntary. The threat of public hearings about a defect that precedes a NHTSA-ordered recall has generally prompted car companies to act on their own.

That threat could be easily stripped away by the new NHTSA administrator, who will be a Trump appointee.

“If there isn’t a threat of recall, will Tesla do them?” Brooks said. “Unfortunately, this is where politics seeps in.”

NHTSA conducting several probes of Tesla

Among the active NHTSA investigations, several are examining fundamental aspects of Tesla’s partially automated driving systems that were in use when dozens of crashes occurred.

An investigation of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system started in October after Tesla reported four crashes to NHTSA in which the vehicles had trouble navigating through sun glare, fog and airborne dust. In one of the accidents, an Arizona woman was killed after stopping on a freeway to help someone involved in another crash.

Under pressure from NHTSA, Tesla has twice recalled the “Full Self-Driving” feature for software updates. The technology — the most advanced of Tesla’s Autopilot systems — is supposed to allow drivers to travel from point to point with little human intervention. But repeated malfunctions led NHTSA to recently launch a new inquiry that includes a crash in July that killed a motorcyclist near Seattle.

NHTSA announced its latest investigation in January into “Actually Smart Summon,” a Tesla technology that allows drivers to remotely move a car, after the agency learned of four incidents from a driver and several media reports.

The agency said that in each collision, the vehicles were using the system that Tesla pushed out in a September software update that was “failing to detect posts or parked vehicles, resulting in a crash.” NHTSA also criticized Tesla for failing to notify the agency of those accidents.