America's national debt has quietly ballooned past $38 trillion, a figure so staggering it's hard for most of us to comprehend.
As interest payments alone now reportedly exceed the entire US military budget, economists and business leaders are growing increasingly vocal about what many are calling an impending financial catastrophe.
One of the loudest voices warning about this looming crisis is Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur whose companies, Tesla and SpaceX, hold nearly $2 billion in bitcoin.
Musk threw his considerable influence behind Donald Trump's presidential campaign, hosting rallies and repeatedly highlighting the US' dangerous debt trajectory.
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But the alliance crumbled after Trump failed to deliver significant spending cuts once in office, and Musk's own DOGE initiative failed to deliver the multi-trillion-dollar savings it initially promised.
Now, Musk is warning of what he sees as an unavoidable 'debt crisis' ahead.
The bitcoin price has crashed since reaching an all-time peak of $126,000 in early October and some analysts believe it could drop much further. Despite this recent tumble, bitcoin is still up nearly 200% over the past two years as investors pile into the so-called 'debasement trade' that's also driven gold prices sharply higher. As markets brace for a potentially game-changing Federal Reserve decision in December, Musk claims that money will 'disappear as a concept' in the future, with energy becoming the only 'true currency.'
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The tech mogul explained during an interview with Nikhil Kamath: “This is why I said bitcoin is based on energy. You can't legislate energy.”
Back in October, Musk wrote on X that 'bitcoin is based on energy: you can issue fake fiat currency, and every government in history has done so, but it is impossible to fake energy.' He agreed that the 'global arms race' towards artificial intelligence explains why gold, silver and bitcoin have all seen their prices soar in recent years.
Bitcoin's security depends on a network of 'miners' who use powerful computers to validate transactions in exchange for newly created bitcoin.
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This process consumes as much electricity annually as some entire countries, and energy demand grows alongside bitcoin's price as more miners enter the network.
However, government stimulus packages and supply chain-disrupting lockdowns triggered massive global inflation, leading some experts to fear the US dollar has entered a 'death spiral.'
“The US is increasing money supply quite substantially with deficits that are in the order of $2 trillion,” Musk told Kamath.
“In three years or less, my guess is goods and services output will exceed the rate of inflation. Maybe after those three years, you have deflation and then interest rates go to zero and then the debt is a smaller problem than it is.”