I may have abused the 'revolving door' term a bit, but I think you are missing the point of hiring former regulators.
You are not hiring them for their bio, achievements or abilities. You are hiring them to signal existing and future regulators that being nice to you can be highly profitable.
You keep saying Uber hired him, but where did you read that? The statement in the article said "we have brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us". Given how high profile Hart is, and given the focus of his career, I understood that to mean that he agreed to review safety practices and make safety policy recommendations, a topic in which he's an expert on. Unlike wording like "joining to lead a safety program", this arrangement doesn't really imply profit-driven motivation, IMHO.
I don't see any other way to interpret their statement:
> Uber, which suspended testing of autonomous vehicles after the accident, on Monday said it was looking at its self-driving program and said it retained Christopher Hart, a former chairman of the NTSB, to advise it on safety.
> “We have initiated a top-to-bottom safety review of our self-driving vehicles program, and we have brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture,” Uber said. “Our review is looking at everything from the safety of our system to our training processes for vehicle operators, and we hope to have more to say soon.”
You are not hiring them for their bio, achievements or abilities. You are hiring them to signal existing and future regulators that being nice to you can be highly profitable.