Elon Musk says that he believes the US Postal Service and Amtrak need to be privatized and that “we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized.”
Speaking virtually at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom conference, Musk said it’s “kind of embarrassing” how other countries have “way better passenger rail than we do,” giving the example of bullet trains in China.
Related article The almighty Musk: How the world’s richest man became Washington’s most powerful bureaucrat
“Amtrak is a sad situation. It’s like, if you’re coming from another country, please don’t use our national rail. It can leave you with a very bad impression of America,” Musk said.
“I think we should privatize anything that can be privatized, just so you’ve got a feedback loop for improvement, is what happens when something’s privatized,” Musk said. “Basically something’s got to have some chance of going bankrupt or there’s not a good feedback loop for improvement.”
But Musk acknowledged that “a bunch of these things require actions for Congress.”
Musk has tried to quash government-funded high-speed rail projects in the past. Ashlee Vance reported in his Musk biography that in 2013, the Tesla CEO’s “Hyperloop” proposal originated out of his “hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system” because the train would allegedly “be the slowest” bullet train yet “at the highest cost per mile.”
While the Hyperloop project did end up launching (before being eventually shuttered), it was “more that he wanted to show people that more creative ideas were out there” and “with any luck, the high-speed rail would be canceled.”
Shortly after the 2024 election, the X account associated with the Department of Government Efficiency posted a list of what it said were flaws in California’s delayed high-speed rail project.
Musk did not expand on privatizing the postal service, although it’s something Trump has long mused about.