Louis DeJoy has resigned from his role as Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service, according to a source familiar with the matter. He told the USPS Board of Governors on Monday that it would be his last day on the job, naming Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino as his replacement until the Board names a permanent successor. Shortly after this story’s publication, DeJoy released a statement confirming his resignation.
His sudden departure comes after he struck an agreement earlier this month to allow Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency inside the USPS to cut costs and remove bureaucratic red tape. DeJoy’s allies fear that his absence will leave the agency vulnerable to a dramatic and disruptive takeover by the Trump Administration. Both President Donald Trump and Musk have recently floated ideas to reshape the beloved institution, such as privatizing the Post Office or folding it into the Commerce Department. “It’s been just a tremendous loser for this country,” Trump said.
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In a letter to the agency’s 640,000 employees, DeJoy, 67, expressed confidence that Tulino and the organization could continue steering the USPS toward financial sustainability, saying “the entirety of the Postal Service will aggressively shape its future and become more efficient, capable, and competitive as it continuously changes and improves to best serve the American public.”
Since taking the helm in 2020, DeJoy launched a 10-year plan to remake the USPS and save it from insolvency. He built new processing centers and modernized the delivery network. He renegotiated contracts for air and ground transportation to eliminate billions in expenses. Most consequentially, he shepherded major legislation through Congress to rescind a 2006 law requiring the Postal Service to prepay the next 50 years of health and retirement benefits for its entire workforce—a rule no other federal agency was forced to follow. Those changes have been starting to bear fruit. In the final quarter of 2024, the USPS made $144 million, its first profitable period in years.
Read more: Louis DeJoy’s Surprising Second Act
Still, DeJoy was always planning to step aside this year. Last month, he told the Board to start looking for a successor, ending a five-year tenure running the agency through a pandemic, three elections that relied heavily on mail voting, and his logistical overhaul. But he originally planned to stay in the position for several more months, helping the USPS transition to a new leader.
A source familiar with the matter tells TIME that DeJoy had clashed in recent days with DOGE representatives assigned to the Postal Service, whom he tasked with reviewing the agency’s structural problems that he ascribed to a law passed in the 1970s. Musk’s lieutenants wanted more control over the USPS than DeJoy was willing to allow, a source familiar with the matter says. DOGE officials complained that DeJoy was “uncooperative.” Some suspect that DeJoy stepped aside to prevent a larger conflagration.
For DeJoy, it’s a somber end to his government career. After making a fortune building a logistics firm worth more than $600 million, he became a GOP megadonor and helped to raise millions for Trump. He was set to serve as the official host of the 2020 Republican National Convention until the USPS Board asked him to become Postmaster General. Taking over in the thick of COVID-19, he initially struggled to transition from life as a corporate executive to a high-level bureaucrat. But, by his own admission, he grew to love the job and the arduous project of trying to rescue the agency from existential threats, even as Democrats and Republicans alike called for his removal. On his watch, the USPS struggled with on-time delivery and meeting its own service standards. But when the Postal Service turned a profit for the first time in years, it was a sign that his plan might be working for the only delivery service that reaches every American in every corner of the country. Yet for all his turnaround efforts—and his history as a Trump backer—it was not enough to withstand Trump’s war on Washington.
Now, he will be leaving the agency unsure of what will follow him. “It has been one of the pleasures of my life and a crowning achievement of my career to have been associated with this cherished institution,” he wrote to his colleagues on Monday, “the United States Postal Service.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.