To me, the fact that Hotz didn’t seem to realize that NHTSA was a thing that existed and that he should be talking to them makes me not trust anything the guy does. If someone can be that colossally ignorant about something that’s so central to what they’re trying to do, and they react to it by basically throwing a tantrum instead of trying to get their shit together and move forward constructively, it calls into question everything about them, including their actual expertise with stuff people think they’re experts in.

It’s like finding out that the neurosurgeon who’s about to operate on you is also a flat earther- it doesn’t directly impact his ability to be a neurosurgeon, but it would be a big red flag that calls everything else into question.