- Elon Musk disparaged America’s rail service in a speech at an investor conference, saying it was “kind of embarrassing” and “a sad situation” that other countries, such as China, have high-speed rail. Privatizing Amtrak would make for a better experience, he added—but would likely require Congressional action.
Tesla CEO and government efficiency head Elon Musk is telling visitors to the U.S. to avoid using Amtrak, calling the train service a laggard to international peers.
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom conference, Musk said it was “kind of embarrassing” that other countries, such as China, have superior passenger rail.
“Amtrak is a sad situation,” Musk said, according to CNN Business, which first reported his remarks.
“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.
He suggested privatizing the rail service, as well as the U.S. Postal Service, would make it run better, although he conceded that doing so would require an act of Congress.
"I think logically we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized," Musk said, according to Reuters. "I think we should privatize the Post Office and Amtrak, for example... We should privatize everything we possibly can."
“You’ve got a feedback loop for improvement, is what happens when something’s privatized,” Musk said, per CNN. “Basically something’s got to have some chance of going bankrupt or there’s not a good feedback loop for improvement.”
Musk isn’t neutral in this matter: over a decade ago, he proposed building a so-called hyperloop—an underground tunnel that would allow for ultra-fast travel between two cities and be quieter, faster, and safer than either driving or mass transit. Musk’s Boring Company initially backed attempts to create such a system but has so far failed to create true high-speed travel.
Amtrak hit record ridership numbers last year, with nearly 33 million passengers taking trips and operating income jumping 7% to $3.6 billion. The company (which is technically a federally chartered for-profit corporation) has set an ambitious goal of serving 66 million passengers a year by 2040. It received $22 billion during the Biden administration, which the rail service is using to repair tracks and bridges and expand service on the East Coast.
Amtrak did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
However, Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner previously told Fortune that building high-speed rail in the U.S., while technically possible, would require massively larger investments than the U.S. Congress has so far been willing to make. America’s funding is “almost a rounding error to the amount that Europe has been investing in its network,” Gardner said.
“It’s a financial conversation, not a technical one,” he said.
