Ed Markey

New Capabilities

Leading investigation into autonomous vehicle companies' use of remote operators

For years, autonomous vehicle companies kept a basic operational question unanswered: how many humans does it actually take to run a driverless fleet? On February 4, 2026, Waymo's chief safety officer told a Senate committee the number. At any given moment, roughly 70 remote agents oversee Waymo's entire fleet of more than 3,000 vehicles across six American cities — a ratio of about one human for every 43 robotaxis.

Updated Feb 21

Money Moves

Questioning deal details

For five years, the world's most popular social media app lived under a death sentence. TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, faced repeated ban threats from two administrations convinced its Chinese ownership posed an unacceptable national security risk. On January 23, 2026, that uncertainty ended: TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC became operational, transferring 80.1% ownership to American and allied investors while ByteDance retained a non-controlling 19.9% stake.

Updated Jan 25