Musk’s assault on the brand new FDNY commissioner proves he is aware of nothing about how fashionable fireplace departments work.
New York Metropolis Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Lillian Bonsignore, commissioner of the Fireplace Division of New York (FDNY), throughout a swearing-in ceremony on the FDNY headquarters on January 6, 2026.
(Adam Grey / Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures)
Late final 12 months, Elon Musk—a non–New Yorker with no expertise in defending the general public—loudly declared that “persons are going to die” as a result of Lillian Bonsignore, a profession emergency medical providers chief and the newly appointed New York Metropolis Fireplace Division commissioner, was not a firefighter.
Musk’s remark, which predictably ignited a firestorm on-line, represents exactly the type of fact-free culture-war hysteria that has come to outline his social media platform. However his misinformation does greater than rile folks up. It needlessly erodes confidence in extremely competent authorities officers tasked with protecting us secure.
If Musk really understood how fashionable fireplace departments function, he’d know that greater than 70 % of FDNY 911 calls are for medical emergencies, whereas lower than 5 % are requires structural fires. He’d understand how divisive it’s to pit firefighters and EMTs in opposition to each other, when our members of service all now reply to a greater variety of extra complicated emergencies, together with medical emergencies. In reality, whilst the speed of fireplace has gone down, fires have turn out to be extra damaging. One of many contributing components are lithium ion batteries—batteries that seem in Musk’s automobiles and that the hearth service has begged each the personal and public sectors to sort out.
And he’d know that EMTs and paramedics are paid roughly half of what law enforcement officials and firefighters make, forcing so many of those public servants out of the job they love and driving attrition so extreme {that a} harmful variety of ambulances sit unstaffed throughout the town day-after-day.
This isn’t only a New York Metropolis subject; it’s a nationwide development. The shift in fireplace departments’ workloads has been occurring for many years. Excessive charges of structural fires within the Nineteen Seventies created a motion for safer constructing codes that has introduced the speed of fireplace (and fireplace demise) down considerably. On the similar time, an getting old inhabitants and a failing healthcare system have pushed many extra into the emergency healthcare system. The shortage of funding to help that shift has had damaging penalties in most giant cities in America.
Present Situation
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s smart appointment of Bonsignore, a 31-year FDNY EMS government—and the second girl and first overtly LGBTQ particular person to steer the company—sought to lastly handle this actuality. Musk’s declare that Bonsignore’s background prevents her from additionally with the ability to oversee firefighters is comically ignorant.
The FDNY commissioner is, and has at all times been, a civilian government function, liable for operating a 17,000-person company with a $2.3 billion funds. FDNY commissioners don’t direct on-scene operations. Civilian oversight of army and paramilitary organizations is a standard governing precept; the US army and lots of different authorities businesses are run alongside these traces.
Most FDNY commissioners have been authorities or private-sector executives earlier than main the company. Some, although not all, have been firefighters. None have been emergency medical service leaders. Even if you happen to don’t share his politics, you can’t deny that Mamdani’s alternative was grounded in each historical past and the evolving mission of the division.
However the level of Musk’s put up was by no means to enhance public understanding or outcomes. (In spite of everything, folks like him despise severe and nonpartisan public service.) It was to seize consideration and inflame, and it labored.
Iknow the results of this ugly aspect of public life firsthand. For eight years, I labored behind the scenes at FDNY, making dents in a few of these intractable issues, together with those in EMS. Once I grew to become the primary girl to steer the company in 2022, I used to be subjected to the identical form of on-line discourse as Bonsignore. I used to be referred to as not certified as a result of I hadn’t been a firefighter, regardless of a novel qualification as the one commissioner to have served as an company administrator for almost a decade earlier than being appointed. Modifications I made to deal with the altering mission have been met with on-line discourse about my gender, starting from disgusting feedback to outright demise threats. Sadly, none of it involved the exhaustive debate about the way forward for the hearth service, or our healthcare system, that we want. All of it was in pursuit of political and cultural level scoring, and none of it saved a citizen’s life or made first responders safer.
It does, nevertheless, make it tougher for businesses just like the FDNY to perform—and that’s an enormous downside, as a result of lives actually are at stake, not solely with EMS, however in the complete failing healthcare system that EMS is a part of. Posts meant to inflame and attraction to our polarized fringes make this all of the tougher.
We see the downstream results day-after-day. Folks with untreated psychological sickness are mendacity on our streets, whereas overwhelmed emergency rooms are compelled to stabilize and launch sufferers as a result of few long-term care choices exist. Cops are being dispatched away from crime preventing to deal with psychological well being crises. Emergency rooms are among the many costliest locations to ship care and are woefully inadequate substitutes for psychological well being providers or persistent illness administration. But personal hospital closures and consolidation push extra folks into 911 and emergency rooms.
None of that is inevitable. And fixing it begins with good public servants and skilled leaders—like the brand new FDNY commissioner—who know what’s damaged, have the concepts and persistence to repair it, and don’t spend their lives on-line giving sizzling takes.
We now have the information and operational know-how to cut back 911 demand and enhance outcomes. Telemedicine, residence visits, and backed transportation preserve folks more healthy and out of emergency rooms, and we should always broaden them. Packages like B-HEARD in New York Metropolis have proven that community-based psychological well being responses can cut back the chance of reentering the 911 system. That the Mamdani administration seems poised to embrace the initiative at a bigger scale is promising. Wraparound social providers and community-based care deal with high-need sufferers and stop them from getting into the methods that may’t do something greater than stabilize them.
Police and fireplace departments grew to become efficient at preventing crime and fires as a result of we constructed them to be well-resourced establishments with clear missions and metrics. If we wish our healthcare system to be efficient, we should do the identical. That work begins with treating EMS responders just like the frontline heroes that they’re, addressing the foundation causes of the challenges they face, and placing individuals who perceive their work—folks like Lillian Bonsignore—in management roles.
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Think about a metropolis the place sick folks aren’t on each nook. The place needing medical help doesn’t routinely imply calling 911. The place the federal government earns public belief by delivering outcomes price our tax {dollars}.
We received’t get these issues with sizzling takes on the Web, and also you received’t get them from Elon Musk, however you’re going to get them from Lillian Bonsignore.
Severe public servants are all over the place and ready to get to work. We simply want to present them our consideration.
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