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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg<\/strong> had to speak to Elon Musk<\/strong> on the phone to get the tech billionaire and Donald Trump<\/strong> superfan to stop spouting hurricane relief misinformation.<\/p>\n Buttigieg and Musk initially clashed on X last Friday, when Musk falsely claimed<\/a> that the Federal Aviation Administration planned to \u201cshut down\u201d airspace over hard-hit states. They later spoke on the phone, Buttigieg told MSNBC\u2019s Jen Psaki<\/strong><\/a>, after Buttigieg corrected Musk<\/a> publicly and invited the noted<\/a> conspiracist<\/a> to call him with questions.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been amazed at how a little kernel of some detail gets blown up on the internet into something that it\u2019s not,\u201d Buttigieg told Psaki, adding that the torrent of partisan misinformation about the response to Hurricane Helene had \u201ca real cost for people on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk and Buttigieg\u2019s specific dust-up involved temporary flight restrictions over North Carolina, where Musk\u2019s satellite internet company, Starlink, has been establishing emergency internet service. \u201cHundreds\u201d<\/a> of pilots in the region had been unable to land because the FAA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency blocked their flights, Musk posted.<\/p>\n But the reality, as Buttigieg and FAA spokesmen have since explained, is less diabolical. The FAA never closed down airspace over North Carolina. In some areas, however, at the request of local law enforcement, the FAA and state aviation agencies have required what Buttigieg called a \u201chigher level of coordination\u201d between pilots and local airports to prevent in-air collisions<\/a>. Such requirements are standard in the aftermath of major natural disasters, when nearby air space can become dangerously crowded.<\/p>\n That explanation appeared to work for Musk, who on Friday afternoon posted a message thanking Buttigieg<\/a> for the call and helping to \u201csimplify<\/a>\u201d FAA regulations. But he still hasn\u2019t walked back any of his false or misleading posts, which also claimed that federal aid workers \u201cseized\u201d emergency aid shipments<\/a> and exhausted their agency\u2019s budget \u201cferrying illegals\u201d<\/a> to the U.S.<\/p>\n Experts who research emergency management have grieved the vibe shift on X<\/a>, which once served as a useful source of real-time disaster information. Today, it\u2019s ground zero for a wider right-wing disinformation campaign<\/a> about the federal government\u2019s response to Hurricane Helene.<\/p>\n \u201cYou look at what\u2019s going on online [and] a lot of it seems to be driven by politics,\u201d Buttigieg said. \u201cAnd that is actively harming and disrupting the process of getting back to normal for so many people whose lives were upended by this awful storm.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n