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.
Donald Trump speaks alongside Elon Musk and Senate members including Kevin Cramer at a SpaceX launch in Texas. Musk said the U.S. national debt was “terrifying.” Brandon Bell/Getty Images
“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.
Newsweek – Published Nov 25, 2024 at 10:47 AM EST
By Hugh Cameron
Live News Reporter
https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-36-trillion-national-debt-terrifying-1991114