Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed by Donald Trump and has pushed for privatizing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), has struck a deal with DOGE to help improve efficiency at USPS.
In a letter on Thursday, DeJoy explained that DOGE would help with his goal of reducing the size of USPS, The New York Times reports. He highlighted that, since the 2021 fiscal year, he had cut 30,000 jobs and planned to reduce the workforce by another 10,000 in the next 30 days through a voluntary retirement program.
Elon Musk also supports the idea of privatizing USPS, as well as Amtrak. At a tech conference last week, Musk said, “We should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized.” President Trump has also backed privatizing USPS and merging it with the Commerce Department. Recently, he has worked to tighten his control over the agency.
Democrats and unions strongly oppose privatization. They argue it would raise prices, harm postal workers, and negatively affect rural areas, which rely on USPS for vital services as protected by the U.S. Constitution. Representative Gerald Connolly, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, criticized the DOGE deal on Thursday, calling it a “catastrophic” move that would harm Americans—especially those in rural areas.
Connolly warned that the worst-case scenario would be if Musk took over USPS and “undermined it, privatized it, and then profited off Americans’ loss.”
The idea of DOGE influencing USPS is concerning because private companies often don’t serve rural areas. Many Americans depend on the Postal Service for essential services, including delivering medicine and agricultural goods. Major cutbacks could harm these services and make USPS less reliable, potentially setting the stage for privatization.
