DeJoy said in a letter Thursday that DOGE was “an effort aligned” with his own work in shrinking the USPS, noting that since the 2021 fiscal year, he had shrunk the postal service’s workforce by 30,000. DeJoy plans for a “further reduction of another 10,000 people in the next 30 days” as part of a one-time voluntary retirement program.
Musk also believes that the USPS should be privatized along with Amtrak, telling a tech conference last week that “we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized.” Trump has in the past suggested privatization as well as merging the USPS with the Commerce Department, and recently moved to cement his control of the agency.
Privatization has been flatly rejected by Democrats and unions, who say that it would raise prices, hurt postal workers, and negatively impact rural communities, who are served by USPS thanks to the Constitution and federal law. Representative Gerald Connolly, the ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, criticized the DOGE deal Thursday in a statement.
