What's really surprising, however, is the sort of decisions a US governor (or maybe just Arizona) is apparently involved in. In my small European country, a license to operate some new and potentially dangerous technology is a matter for some executive agency, which would routinely involve at least one expert on the technology and a lawyer.
Now, obviously, that agency is part of the executive branch and theoretically below the Governor in a hierarchy. But in practice it's very similar to the federal US Government: the US President actually can't directly order some low-level bureaucrats at the FDA/SEC/etc to do anything. Such an order has to go through all the levels of that hierarchy. And if anyone refuses, their firing also has to follow that path.
Individual decisions are almost completely independent from top leadership. A series of questionable decisions will probably get you reassigned to the mail room, but even then past decisions would usually remain in force.
That system does not only strengthen the role of subject matter experts in the process and reduce the appearance of arbitrary favouritism. It's also in the best interest of politicians: to put your signature under an order allowing an individual safety-critical project without following some sort of established process is almost certain to end your career the first time one of those projects goes south.
Less relevant nitpicks:
- What exactly did Arizona stand to gain from a few hundred autonomous cars with minimum-wage drivers behind the wheel? It's not like Uber was going to move their software engineering to Tuscon, was it?
- Getting free use of Uber's offices in San Francisco is obviously bribery if it was for personal or campaign staff. Although I guess it's technically legal in the US if properly reported.