American postman wants Elon Musk Doge to save ‘broken’ USPS

The American General Postman knew that sooner or later, Doge would come to call the US postal service.
So Louis Dejoy decided to reach him.
The best postman of the state has signed an agreement with Elon Musk this week with the Ministry of Government Efficiency to cooperate at reforms in the proportion service, which submits letters and packages from the tropical guum to the Alaskan wilderness. Instead of waiting for the crew to dictate changes, Dejoy wants to shape them.
“This was a short and healthy conversation” he cited a few days ago, Dejoy said in an interview. “We’re going to races.”
Read more:Postal Head of Postal Services signs an agreement to encourage reforms
He also wants to strengthen a number of reforms that have been following for the last four years. Nepalata of most Americans, the honorable post is trying to invent, reducing costs while transferring to the modern system of distribution of the center and class similar to competitors United Parcel service Inc i Fedex Corp.
At least for the customers, Deimoy’s “Delivery for America” reform plan gave limited results, and many Americans are now waiting longer waiting to get mail. But u letter Congress leaders on Thursday discovering an agreement, Dejoy called the costs – and the staff – he had already cut off and said that the service had set off on better days.
“The postal service once faced the immediate threat of insolvenity, which would require the rescue of taxpayers,” he wrote. “Now, the postal service is finally experiencing an unprecedented period of growth and innovation.”
Dejoy has already announced that he intends to step down from his office, although a 10 -year delivery to America is not halfway yet. President Donald Trump was thinking about serving privately orfolding it into a trade departmentwhile Musk also called for privatization. In contrast, Dejoy’s letter urged to ensure that a version of his own reforms continues after his departure.
At least two Doge and GSA employees will work under Dejoy’s supervision, seeking potential savings and efficiency, according to a person familiar with the details of the plan. “It’s not an army,” Dejoy said. “I still run the organization.”
The reform is nearly 250-year-old postal services, which employs 635,000 people, is a complex task-by-way and because of its term. Unlike their private competitors, USPS isrequiredGet to Americans even in the most herds, no matter how rarely populated. Indeed, the UPS and FedEx are equally paying the service to cover the “Last Mile” delivery in many rural areas where they would otherwise fight for profitable action. And while it is an independent government agency, not directly under the control of the White House, it faces the regulations and legal requirements that his private competitors do not.
“The level of transformation required in US mail to be basically a profitable network 2025, opposite what Deyoy actually could move the dial, there is a huge interruption between the two,” said Derek Lossing, founder of Cirrus Global Advisors, an advisory logistics company.
Great losses
In his letter, Dejoy, former executive director of the private logistics sector and Trump’s donor who assumed his duty in 2020, said he inherited the organization that had experiencedClose to $ 100 billion lossesAnd he was on his way to losing another $ 200 billion.
“When I got there, I didn’t consider how broken we were,” Dejoy Bloomberg said in December.
He never imagined a stay at the agency for so long. “I originally came here for three years, I fell in love with people,” Dejoy said on Thursday. “It’s a very, very important work.”
Some of the changes he spent were relatively simple, such as ensuring that the trucks were full before they exit on the route, not send the driver with a semi -empty trailer. Others were larger, including consolidation of objects and switching volume from expensive air transport to field trucks. The service also establishes a series of 60 regional distribution centers.
Increased income by focusing more on packages and increasing the rate, withThe cost of the sealGrowth 33% between January 2019 and July 2024. The service is largely self-financed by its revenues from operations.
Dejoy also reduced the huge salary of the service, reducing the workforce for 30,000 people from the Fiscal 2021, with another 10,000 departure in voluntaryEarly pension program. Yet, for all changes, the service recorded a loss of $ 9.5 billion last year, while it was declining at the time of delivery of the first -class mail.
Dejoy sees slower delivery as temporary growing pain. Pushes employees “to reinforce and act like Fedex and UPS.” These are “terrible organizations, and we had a lot of transitions, a lot of heavy luggage,” he said. Come summer, “We will swing.”
In his letter, Dejoy asked Congress to solve some problems that the service herself could. Specifically, he said that an unhinted federal legislative mandate had dressed the agency with $ 6 billion to $ 11 billion in annual costs. And he was especially aiming for a postal regulatory commission that monitored the rates and performance of the service. He called him a “unnecessary agency” also attached to “Tenth Price Models and for decades old bureaucratic processes.”
‘Failed’
The Commission immediately dropped back, betrayingstatementThursday that the Dejoy Delivery Program of America has done the service less effective and degraded its performance, especially in rural areas. The commissioners also focused on the highly competitive package of the package, calling it “a strategy that has failed at the moment.”
In February, Dejoy asked the Board of Directors of Postal Service to startlooking for his replacementA process that hopes will take months, not years. Even some critics of his plan praise him to take over a difficult task.
“In short, his successor has a mess,” he saidPaul SteidlerOlder colleague at the Lexington Institute, a right -wing research center in Virginia. “His plan failed, but give the guy a little merit. At least he shot.”
Dejoy is now feeling more confident, leaving. “They know what they need to do and that’s why I feel comfortable in giving leave,” he said. “And if I get this help I just set up with these problems, the postal service will be in excellent form for a long time.”
This story is originally displayed on Fortune.com
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