Amtrak CEO Steps Down as Trump and Musk Threaten to Privatize Firm

The newest sufferer of the Trump administration’s obsession with the looks of effectivity is the man who made the trains run on time. Stephen Gardner, the Chief Government Officer of Amtrak who held the put up since 2022, abruptly introduced that he can be stepping down from his function Wednesday within the wake of Donald Trump and Elon Musk putting the practice firm within the crosshairs for potential privatization.

In a statement, Gardner mentioned, “I’m stepping down as CEO to make sure that Amtrak continues to benefit from the full religion and confidence of this administration.” Previous to taking the highest function on the agency, he served as Amtrak’s chief working and industrial officer beginning in 2009 and because the group’s president beginning in 2020. And whereas he’s been hanging within the C-suite for some time now, Gardner has some fairly stable credentials as a practice lover. He beforehand served as a conductor and operations supervisor for the Maine Central Railroad, and he based a punk band known as Chessie, which took its identify from the defunct Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.

Regardless of this (or due to it), Gardner discovered himself between a rock and a tough place with the brand new administration. Trump’s ire for Amtrak isn’t new—new tried to cut federal funding for the company in half throughout his first administration—nevertheless it’s taken a sharper flip this time round. Billions of dollars of support for the railway obtained caught in Trump’s federal funding freeze earlier this 12 months, and Division of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been urgent Amtrak to end range, fairness, and inclusion applications and mandate return-to-office orders for workers or lose out on federal assist.

Whilst Gardner has tried to associate with as a lot of the Trump administration’s calls for as attainable, it appeared inevitable that he and the corporate would proceed to obtain vital scrutiny. Earlier this month, Elon Musk suggested that Amtrak and the US Postal Service must be privatized. He known as Amtrak “form of embarrassing” and mentioned at a convention, “Should you’re coming from one other nation, please don’t use our nationwide rail. It may depart you with a really unhealthy impression of America.”

Amtrak is coming off a 12 months with record ridership, facilitated in no small half by ongoing expansion of obtainable routes which can be a part of a plan to serve an additional 40 million people with rail service within the coming years.

Now, maybe privatizing the corporate would broaden that. Let’s test on how Musk’s Boring Firm has been doing with its efforts to supply high-speed, mass transit options…it seems the corporate has spent greater than seven years building 2.4 miles of a proposed 68-mile community in Las Vegas, all carried out with minimal oversight or intervention from regulators. And that’s the corporate’s finest displaying! That doesn’t even contact on the multitude of initiatives that the Boring Firm has promised solely to delay or straight-up abandon as a result of they proved too pricey to proceed. Say what you’ll about Amtrak, nevertheless it doesn’t look so unhealthy by comparability.