Musk's Recipe for the Debt Crisis
Elon Musk, the head of Tesla and xAI, has a clear view on how the United States can climb out of its enormous debt hole. In an interview with investor and podcaster Nikhil Kamath released on Sunday, Musk said that the only way out is productivity growth driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. According to him, this will be the only way to resolve the national debt crisis, with the debt reaching $38.34 trillion as of November 26—more than 881 trillion Czech korunas. Musk added that such growth could cause significant deflation, meaning a decline in prices.
Musk explained that productivity is currently not high enough to outpace inflation, which is hovering around 3%. But that will soon change. "Within three years or less, I estimate that the production of goods and services will outpace inflation," he said. In this world, people would achieve a state Musk calls "universal high income," where productivity is so immense and goods are so abundant that work becomes optional. This could happen within the next two decades.
Optimus Robot Is Set to Be the Key to Prosperity
In recent weeks, Musk has frequently returned to the idea of how artificial intelligence will transform the economy. At a Tesla shareholder event last month, he said that his Optimus robot could eliminate poverty and the need for human labor. "People often talk about eliminating poverty and providing excellent healthcare for everyone," Musk said. "There is only one way to do that, and that is the Optimus robot."
At the US-Saudi Investment Forum last month, Musk added that money will cease to be important in an AI-driven future. "There will still be constraints such as energy or matter," he said. "But I think that at some point, currency will become irrelevant." Economists such as John Maynard Keynes predicted as early as 1930 that technological progress would shorten the workweek to 15 hours, and Musk sees great potential in this direction.
Enormous Debt and Rising Interest Costs
The US national debt is now more than double what it was ten years ago. Interest payments on that debt totaled $1.22 trillion in fiscal year 2025, equivalent to about 28 trillion Czech korunas. According to calculations from October 2025, servicing the debt costs $104 billion per month, representing 15% of total federal spending for fiscal year 2026.
Musk pointed out that interest payments on the debt exceed the entire US military budget. "The debt is insanely high now, and the interest payments on it exceed the entire military budget—just the interest—and that will increase, at least in the short term," he said in the interview with Nikhil Kamath. According to a 2024 report, interest costs surpassed spending on defense and Medicaid (the US health insurance program that provides coverage to people with low incomes and limited resources) for the first time.
Pichai Warns of Changes in the Workplace
Google CEO Sundar Pichai discussed artificial intelligence in an interview with the BBC last month. He said that artificial intelligence has the potential to deliver enormous benefits but will also cause societal changes. "I think what a CEO does could be one of the easier things for artificial intelligence to handle one day," Pichai said.
Pichai added that artificial intelligence will soon be able to perform more complex tasks independently, as if acting on behalf of the user. "Over the next 12 months, you will see developments where they will handle more complex tasks for you," he said. Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, expressed a similar view, saying that artificial intelligence could be a better CEO of OpenAI than he is.
Pichai advises young people to learn how to work with artificial intelligence. "It doesn't matter whether you want to be a teacher or a doctor—those professions will remain, but those who learn to use these tools will be more successful," he said. Artificial intelligence is already affecting the labor market; for example, according to an Indeed study from August this year, it is taking jobs away from software engineers and product managers while also creating new ones.
Other Voices from the Tech World
Investor Vinod Khosla said in September that artificial intelligence will take over 80% of the work in 80% of professions, reducing the value of human labor and giving people more free time. To prevent inequality, he proposes introducing a universal basic income.
On the other hand, Geoffrey Hinton, often called the "godfather of artificial intelligence," warned in an interview with the Financial Times in September that artificial intelligence will bring enormous profit growth, but most of it will go only to a small group of people at the top. "It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer," Hinton said. He added that artificial intelligence will cause mass unemployment, and that the problem lies in the capitalist system, which determines who receives those benefits.
Musk sees artificial intelligence and robotics as a solution that could lead to deflation because the production of goods and services will grow faster than the amount of money in circulation. "If you have artificial intelligence and robotics and a dramatic increase in the production of goods and services, you will probably have deflation," he said. This could reduce interest rates to zero and ease the debt burden.
Sources: businessinsider.com and fortune.com
