Amtrak CEO stepping down, weeks after Musk says the rail service should be privatized

New York (CNN) — Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner is stepping down from his position to “to ensure that Amtrak continues to enjoy the full faith and confidence of this administration,” he announced in a statement.

The decision comes as Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk said he believes the US Postal Service and Amtrak need to be privatized.

Gardner, who was appointed as CEO in 2022, said in his statement Wednesday that he had been working at Amtrak for 16 years. He was the 13th executive to lead Amtrak since it was created in 1971.

“We look forward to working with President Trump and Secretary Duffy as we build the world-class passenger rail system this country deserves,” the Amtrak board said in a statement Wednesday.

Trump ally Musk had mused about the state of US passenger rail at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom conference in this month, saying that it was “kind of embarrassing” how other countries have “way better passenger rail than we do” and that “Amtrak is a sad situation.”

“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 continued. “Basically something’s got to have some chance of going bankrupt or there’s not a good feedback loop for improvement.”

Amtrak is a federally chartered corporation, which means the federal government is its majority stockholder. Its board of directors, which includes the US Transportation secretary, is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Gardner had previously predicted it would take at least five years for the ridership to break even from its 2020 pandemic-related losses. But the train service carried a record 32.8 million passengers in fiscal year 2024 — a 15% increase from the year prior.

Ticket revenue for fiscal 2024 hit a record $2.5 billion, according to the company, while it posted at an operating loss of $635 million.

Amtrak said in a March memo that criticisms over its financial performance are “based upon a false premise and ignores the facts,” and pushed back on the notion that it should be privatized.

Profitability is not its main mission, Amtrak said, saying it was initially created to increase profits for freight railroads who were losing huge sums of money providing passenger service. And it argued that the heavily subsidized national railroads in other countries — which Musk previously touted — were also not expected to be profitable.

It added that Congress has directed Amtrak to continue its long-distance service for rural communities, which it said was behind the vast majority of its operating losses.

“It is further belied by more than half a century of inadequate federal funding that has left Amtrak with aged assets that are not in a state of good repair and thus more expensive to maintain,” the memo continued.

Amtrak operates intercity passenger rail services in 46 states, Washington, DC and two Canadian provinces, on more than 21,400 miles of routes. At the end of fiscal 2024, Amtrak had over 22,000 employees.

CNN’s Julianna Bragg and Hadas Gold contributed to this report.

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