Elon Musk has expressed his fear that the U.S. national debt is spiraling out of control as he prepares to head up a newly created government department designed to slash federal spending.
The SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO posted his concerns to X on Monday, in response to a graphic from Substack newsletter The Rabbit Hole.
"The national debt is over $36 trillion," The Rabbit Hole's post read. "This amounts to over $106k per person in America."
"Terrifying tbh," Musk responded.
Musk, alongside fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, has been tasked by the President-elect with addressing the country's surging debt. On November 12, Donald Trump announced that the two would serve as co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a newly created entity focused on reducing government expenditures, slashing regulations and enacting cost-cutting initiatives throughout the federal government.
"We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America," Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week. "The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings."
"If this non-government entity wants to make recommendations on cuts and changes with the cooperation of the Office of Management and Budget, I am OK with that," David E. Lewis, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, previously told Newsweek. "The only concern is in cases where Musk and Ramaswamy and friends have conflicts of interest. Both billionaires have companies regulated by a number of government agencies."
The Trump-Vance transition team has previously said it would ensure that "DOGE and those involved with it are compliant with all legal guidelines related to conflicts of interest."
David E. Lewis said that there was a degree of "bloat and inefficiency" within government, which merited examination and may have contributed to the gross national debt ballooning to its current level.
The $36 trillion milestone was reached on Friday, according to the Department of the Treasury, only months after America surpassed the $35 trillion mark in July.
According to a report from the Congressional Budget Office, the gross federal debt will total $56.8 trillion in 2034, which the House Budget Committee attributed to "unsustainable federal and executive spending."
The U.S. currently has the largest national debt in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund, the majority of which is held by the public, with the remainder owed largely to Japan and China. As a percentage of GDP, the U.S. debt is around 121 percent, putting it well behind countries such as Sudan (344 percent), Japan (251 percent) and Singapore (175 percent).
"America is currently headed for bankruptcy super fast," Musk wrote on Saturday, in response to another post detailing the extent of the federal budget deficit.
Musk, who was joined by the president-elect and his team to witness the launch of a SpaceX Starship rocket last week, previously outlined plans to slash federal government spending during a New York rally prior to the election.
"Well, I think we can do at least 2 trillion," Musk told rallygoers at Madison Square Garden, a figure that would equate to just under 30 percent of the federal government's total spending ($6.75 trillion) in the fiscal year from October to September.
"Yes, 2 trillion. At the end of the day, all government spending is taxation," he said. "Whether it's direct taxation, all government spending, it either becomes inflation or it's direct taxation. Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that."
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