Key Takeaways
• Financial Reform Efforts: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy reportedly signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to address the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) financial issues.
• Uncertainty & Privatization Concerns: The collaboration with DOGE introduces more uncertainty regarding the future of the USPS, with Musk advocating for privatization, which adds to the complexity of potential reforms and impacts on service delivery.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy reportedly signed an agreement with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to reform the postal service’s “big problems” with losing money.
CNBC reported that the United States Postal Service (USPS) lost $9.5 billion last year. DeJoy, who announced his pending departure from the agency earlier this year, said in his resignation letter that government red tape was often the cause for the USPS not implementing more revenue-generating (or at least revenue-saving) programs. DeJoy and the USPS are now hoping that working with DOGE and the General Services Administration will allow for “identifying and achieving further efficiencies.”
DeJoy also reportedly told Congress in a letter that the USPS plans to reduce its workforce by 10,000 workers over the next month through a voluntary early retirement program – a model that’s become the norm across various government agencies during the early months of the second Trump administration.
The issues that DeJoy hopes this new cooperation with DOGE will alleviate include management of retirement assets and workers’ compensation programs, regulatory requirements that he says hinder revenue generation, and unfunded mandates. He also said that the Postal Regulatory Commission is “unnecessary” and “inflicted over $50 billion in damage to the Postal Service by administering defective pricing models and decades-old bureaucratic processes.” The Postal Regulatory Commission argued back that the USPS wasted $100 billion in financial assistance from Congress and the commission, rendering the USPS even more inefficient and negatively impacting service to rural Americans.
It’s unclear how the agreement with the DOGE might impact the USPS, though it certainly adds to the uncertainty that’s been hovering over the agency and its future.Musk has said publicly that he thinks the USPS should be privatized, going further than President Donald Trump, who has weighed bringing the USPS under the U.S. Department of Commerce, which would technically violate the Constitution.
The only tangible takeaway, for now, is the announcement of new service standards for First-Class Mail, which the USPS says will save the agency at least $36 billion over the next decade, and ideally make some mail programs even faster, or at least unchanged.
