Elon Musk floats the idea of using Bitcoin to pay off $35 Trillion of US debt
The US debt burden will bankrupt the country says Musk, could Bitcoin pay it all off?!
Key takeaways
- Musk's campaign against excessive US spending has resulted in calls for the creation of the Doge Department Of Government Efficiency, which Musk has said he believes could strip $2 trillion from US spending.
- Doge's association with the dogecoin bitcoin rival has caused the dogecoin price to more than double over the last month, with billionaire Mark Cuban joking Musk could put dogecoin in the US Treasury.
Cite or link to this article
Griffin, M. (2024) 'Elon Musk floats the idea of using Bitcoin to pay off $35 Trillion of US debt', 311 Institute, 12 November. Available at: https://www.311institute.com/elon-musk-floats-the-idea-of-using-bitcoin-to-pay-off-35-trillion-of-us-debt/ (Accessed: 1 October 2026).
"Excess government spending is driving America into bankruptcy," Musk posted to X, the social media platform he bought and rebranded from Twitter, adding: "This debt growth is unsustainable." And many people, including in the Pentagon where one way to break the US military is to bankrupt them first, agree.
Musk was replying to Bitcoin-backing Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who called the "status quo of $2 trillion annual deficits unsustainable."
Paul made headlines in 2015 when he began accepting bitcoin campaign donations to support his Republican White House bid - with Donald Trump and many other 2024 candidates following suit - and in 2021 said in an interview he believed crypto could replace the US dollar due to a lack of confidence in the currency and increased government surveillance.
U.S. national debt has skyrocketed in recent years, crossing the $34 trillion mark at the beginning of 2024, largely due to Covid and lockdown stimulus measures that sent inflation spiralling out of control and forced the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at a historical clip.
Earlier this year, Trump floated the idea he could use bitcoin to "pay off our $35 trillion - hand them a little crypto check, right? We'll hand them a little bitcoin and wipe out our $35 trillion," he said.
In July, Trump promised to create a "strategic national bitcoin reserve" and predicted bitcoin could eclipse gold's $16 trillion market capitalization during an appearance at the Bitcoin 2024 conference.
Musk's campaign against excessive US spending has resulted in calls for the creation of the Doge Department Of Government Efficiency, which Musk has said he believes could strip $2 trillion from US spending.
The Doge department is a nod to the shiba inu doge meme that's also linked to the dogecoin cryptocurrency, named by Elon Musk as his "favourite" cryptocurrency and accepted as payment by his Tesla car company.
Doge's association with the dogecoin bitcoin rival has caused the dogecoin price to more than double over the last month, with billionaire Mark Cuban joking Musk could put dogecoin in the US Treasury.
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The US debt burden will bankrupt the country says Musk, could Bitcoin pay it all off?!
About the author
Matthew Griffin Founder, 311 Institute
Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath."
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Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.
An award-winning YouTube creator with over a million followers, with an unrivalled global reach and impact, Matthew is a highly sought-after international keynote speaker, lecturer, and mentor who collaborates with global leaders through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to shape pivotal initiatives such as the UN’s AI for Humanity program, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (UN COP), and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
As the former Global Head of Cloud, National Security, and Enterprise Sales for companies including Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, Matthew has a proven track record of building multi-billion dollar business units and turning failing divisions into market leaders. His ability to identify, analyse, and communicate the implications of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends is unparalleled, and his insights are trusted by many of the world’s most respected organisations, including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi, Coca-Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Dow Jones, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, Siemens AG and Siemens Energy, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, Walmart, Workday, Worldpay and many others.
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Sources and further reading
Source: first published by the 311 Institute on 12 November 2024. Cite as: Griffin, M. (2024). Elon Musk floats the idea of using Bitcoin to pay off $35 Trillion of US debt. 311 Institute. https://www.311institute.com/elon-musk-floats-the-idea-of-using-bitcoin-to-pay-off-35-trillion-of-us-debt/
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