Government adviser and tech billionaire Elon Musk has said the United States Postal Service (USPS) should be privatized.
Newsweek has contacted USPS for comment via email outside of regular working hours.
Why It Matters
President Donald Trump has previously floated the idea of privatizing the national mail service, which is an independent agency within the executive branch.
The USPS is older than the United States itself, having been founded in 1775. It became a financially self-sustaining government agency in 1970 and, according to the Pew Research Center, is one of the most well-liked federal agencies, with a 72 percent approval rate.
What To Know
During a remote appearance at a Morgan Stanley technology conference in San Francisco, Musk told attendees the U.S. government should privatize “as much as possible.”
“I think logically we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized,” Musk said. “I think we should privatize the Post Office and Amtrak for example… We should privatize everything we possibly can.”
“Basically, something’s got to have some chance of going bankrupt, or there’s not a good feedback loop for improvement,” Musk added.
But even as part of the federal government, the USPS has been struggling financially in recent years, having implemented a 10-year plan to stabilize its finances in 2021. It reported a $9.5 billion loss in the fiscal year ending in September 2024, compared to a net loss of $6.5 billion in the fiscal year 2023.
The mail agency has said that 80 percent of its losses came from fixed costs, including pension contributions for its retirees and workers’ compensation claims for injuries on the job. USPS currently expects to close the fiscal year 2025 with a $6.9 billion net loss.
In late 2024, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability reported that the financial condition of the USPS “remains poor.” It told outgoing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that he must “implement cost-effective measures to achieve financial self-sufficiency.”
The USPS operates under a “universal service obligation,” requiring it to deliver mail and packages regardless of distance or profitability, unlike private mail services. It also does not receive taxpayer money.
Trump also recently indicated plans to merge USPS with the Commerce Department.
What People Are Saying
USPS Office of the Inspector General website: “[USPS] is still required to deliver to neighborhoods across the nation, six days a week, even those far-reaching places that private carriers don’t deliver to because it’s not profitable. If exclusively run as a business, the Postal Service probably couldn’t afford to deliver there either. But, as a public service, it is required by law to do so.”
President Donald Trump said on February 21: “We’re losing so much money with the Postal Service, and we don’t want to lose that kind of money. So the secretary and some others that have talent, that kind of talent, we’ll be looking at it.”
What Happens Next
Any effort to privatize the USPS will require an act of Congress.
Read the full article here
