What did Donald Trump do today?

He sent employees of a private company owned by Elon Musk to "help" gut the agency that regulates them, while firing its workers.

Over the weekend, Trump extended his purge of federal employees to include FAA workers charged with keeping the country's aviation infrastructure working. As with other purges, Trump is not firing FAA workers based on poor performance or redundancy, but simply because of loopholes in the law that make it easier to fire any employees who have been hired or promoted in the last few years.

Nobody, including the Trump administration, seems entirely sure how many aviation safety workers were just fired, but the number appears to be at least several hundred. The FAA was already understaffed prior to Trump taking office, something exacerbated by a hiring freeze Trump instituted on his second day in office with an executive order titled "Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation."

Employees of SpaceX, a company owned by Trump's patron Elon Musk, visited FAA headquarters today on orders from Musk and Trump. It's not clear whether they they were going as official government employees, or whether any of them had any experience in aviation or the relevant computer systems. But a press release from Trump's transportation secretary, former reality TV contestant Sean Duffy, suggested that they would be going to "get a firsthand look at the current system" and "learn" how it might be improved.

Musk is the CEO of SpaceX, but has no experience in aviation except as a passenger. However, the FAA did temporarily ground his rockets after one of them blew up over commercial airspace. Musk retaliated by having Trump force the resignation of the previous FAA director. The federal government is SpaceX's main source of income.

Why does this matter?

• The FAA needs its own experienced workers more than it needs "help" from a company owned by a private citizen who hates it.

• Even if it's legal, firing workers in critical safety roles at random is stupid.

• The FAA's mission is to keep American skies safe, not maximize Elon Musk's profits.