Art of the Deal: Will First Pal Buy Amtrak?
While obviously avoiding a mirror, Musk said of Amtrak, “It can leave you with a very bad impression of America.” Since Musk previously expressed “hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system,” one may wonder if his traffic-congested frontal lobe envisions a privatized slow-order national rail passenger system. Surely that vision would align with the sloth-like USPS, begging the question: What rational Daddy Warbucks would purchase either pig—even with lipstick applied?
Kindly bear with us. We are doing some deep thinking—but with the blinds closed, as Mr. Musk, along with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, suggested “thinkers” may dampen economic activity, making them societal looters (in context of removing such activity from gross domestic product statistics). As Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week on actions of the POTUS, “Make that make sense.” Please, we are trying, at least in regards to Mr. Musk. Be patient.
While we know a fair amount about Amtrak, our limited knowledge of the USPS includes its consistently delivering in our semi-rural county the print edition of Railway Age weeks beyond the cover-date. By contrast, the Jeff Bezos-owned online retailer, Amazon, arrives with our “whatever” just hours after we click on its website, “Place Order”—its delivery team occasionally tripping, at 4 a.m., our home security system. Amazon never sleeps. If Mr. Musk mends fences with fellow billionaire and space-travel competitor Mr. Bezos, who better to purchase and reform the USPS—and gain with it (get this!) the authority to put you-know-whose portrait on stamps? Indeed, sell the USPS to Bezos. Step down, next case.
As for Amtrak, forget that it never made a penny (scratch that, make it “nickel,” as POTUS 47 has fired the penny). Amtrak may have been created as a “for profit” company, but everyone knows that was aspirational—the American dream!—kind of like today’s interpretation of Lady Liberty’s invitation: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.” Sorry, we digress.
Hey, numbers are only numbers, as Bluto and Flounder from Animal House will attest (and if you don’t believe them, ask Beavis or Butthead). Not to worry. Those cook-the-books inspectors general are being dispatched and Secretary Lutnick closed two suspect expert advisory agencies producing economic data. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (who will guard the guards?). Be calm. We are talking “The Art of the Deal” (you didn’t read the book?).
Drum roll, please, Tee-up Mexico to purchase Amtrak. Short memory? Didn’t POTUS 45 get them to pay for a border wall?
Bottom line here (pardon the real estate tycoon jargon) is that if the First Pal can peddle successfully to the POTUS and American public that more than one million people over the age of 150 are receiving Social Security checks, he can pawn Amtrak off on Mexico—or even a cohort of POTUS 47 zealots ever eager to load up on more meme coins no matter their market prospects.
But perhaps we are ignoring the most eligible potential owner of Amtrak—the First Pal himself. Who better than the world’s richest man? Adding steel wheels on steel rails to his rubber-tire Tesla and SpaceX ventures are a trifecta lacking only a steamship line to earn for Musk greater glory than even railroad mogul Edward H. Harriman could imagine. So extensive were Harriman’s transportation holdings that Interstate Commerce Commissioner Franklin K. Lane said of him in 1907:
“[Harriman] may journey by steamship from New York to New Orleans, thence by rail to San Francisco, across the Pacific Ocean to China, and, returning by another route to the United States, may go to Ogden by any one of three rail lines, and thence to Kansas City, to Omaha, without leaving the deck or platform of a carrier which he controls, and without duplicating any part of the journey.”
What a jewel Amtrak would be for the world’s richest man. Musk could travel by Cybertruck from Mar-a-Lago to Amtrak’s station at West Palm Beach, board his Amtrak business car for travel to Amtrak’s Winter Park Station, drive a Tesla to the Kennedy Space Center, and climb aboard SpaceX for a journey to Mars. Eat thy heart out, ghost of Mr. Harriman.
I’m stickin’ with Elon. And I have a corporate slogan for all his passenger ventures (rail, road, space and maybe, soon, ocean): “We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride.”
Railway Age Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner is author of “Amtrak: Past, Present, Future,” and “Railroads & Economic Regulation,” available from Simmons-Boardman Books at https://www.railwayeducationalbureau.com, 800-228-9670.
