TJ Madsen is among the founding members of the New Herald Tribune and chairs the editorial board. He worked for national syndicated newspapers in Newark, Philadelphia, and Baltimore before moving to the midwest.
July 7 , 2025
Austin, Texas - Elon Musk issued a rare public apology Monday for the sweeping cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) enacted by his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), acknowledging the agency’s previously strong record of accurate flood warnings and expressing regret over the consequences of the reductions.
The apology comes in the wake of catastrophic floods in Texas, where at least 79 people have died and dozens remain missing. Local officials and national experts have sharply criticized the NWS’s diminished capacity to predict and warn about the disaster, attributing the failures in part to DOGE’s drastic staff and budget cuts.
“The reductions to the National Weather Service by DOGE under the Trump administration severely compromised the agency's capacity to deliver accurate and timely forecasts, likely exacerbating the impact of the Texas disaster,” stated Musk’s own AI tool, Grok, in a widely shared post.
DOGE, led by Musk, slashed federal funding for the NWS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), resulting in the loss of nearly 600 staff members—about a 17-20% reduction in workforce—across the agencies. Critical positions, such as warning coordination meteorologists, were left unfilled, hampering the agency’s ability to communicate urgent threats and coordinate with emergency responders.
Meteorologists and former NWS officials have warned for months that these cuts would impair forecast accuracy and endanger lives during severe weather events. The recent Texas floods, which struck the notoriously flood-prone Hill Country, have intensified scrutiny. Some Texas officials argued that the NWS underplayed the severity of the rainfall, while independent experts noted that, despite the agency’s efforts, staff shortages and reduced data collection (including fewer weather balloon launches) degraded the quality and timeliness of warnings.
Musk, in his statement, acknowledged that the NWS “previously issued accurate flood warnings” and that the agency’s work had “saved countless lives in past disasters.” He expressed regret for the “unintended consequences” of DOGE’s efficiency drive and said he would “work with Congress and the administration to restore critical forecasting capacity.”
As Texas communities mourn their losses, the episode has reignited national debate over the value of government-funded science and the risks of cost-cutting in public safety agencies.
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