The United States Postal Service gave Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s former company a $5 million shipping contract last month.
DeJoy still owns a multimillion-dollar share in the company, XPO Logistics, as of this month, according to CBS News. The 18-month contract to ship mail between Norfolk, Virginia, and Evansville, Indiana, is the first regular contract between the Postal Service and XPO in more than a year. XPO had a temporary contract with the service in December 2019, but its last contract was signed in 2019.
The contract has not been previously reported, and XPO’s newsroom does not include a press release for the award, though it does include announcements for awards from Whirlpool, a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others. It was disclosed in a quarterly update by the Postal Service in mid-October. The contract has one of the highest annual rates of the Postal Service’s 1,600 contracts with other firms.
In August, around the time when the Postal Service would have been negotiating the contract, XPO released a statement “providing information regarding who we are, as well as our relationships with the USPS and Mr. DeJoy.”
In the release, XPO noted that it has won awards in the past.
“All of these contracts were awarded by career USPS procurement officers during the tenures of previous postmasters general, based on our record of performance,” XPO wrote. “We currently have three contracts with the USPS; they involve helping the USPS manage transportation, as well as providing support during the holiday peak season.”
The press release said that DeJoy joined XPO in 2014 after it acquired his company New Breed Logistics, a sale valued at roughly $615 million. DeJoy led the North American supply chain business until 2015 and then served as a board member until 2018.
“He’s no longer an officer or director of XPO,” the report read. “As a result, we’re not in a position to know if he currently owns any XPO stock.”
XPO still pays more than $2 million a year to DeJoy in rent and expenses for an office space in California.
DeJoy has been a controversial figure in the Trump administration since his selection. He donated more than $1 million to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, and since taking over as postmaster general, DeJoy has implemented an array of changes, such as the decisions to prohibit overtime and curtail late trips for mail carriers that ensure on-time delivery. Some argued that those changes were politically motivated and would impede the Postal Service’s ability to process the record-breaking number of mail-in ballots ahead of Election Day.
The Washington Examiner reached out to XPO for further comment.
