Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sounded the alarm on the Biden administration’s massive deficit spending, warning that unless steps are taken to slow down the growth of America’s national debt, the U.S. dollar will become worthless.
“We need to do something about our national debt or the dollar will be worth nothing,” Mr. Musk said in a post on X.
The billionaire tech mogul was reacting to a post about Gen. H.R. McMaster warning that the world is on the cusp of World War III and calling for a doubling of defense spending to prepare for potential threats.
We need to do something about our national debt or the dollar will be worth nothing
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 3, 2024
Mr. Musk has repeatedly advocated for a negotiated end to the conflict in Ukraine to put a halt to the loss of life.
For instance, during a February conversation on X with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mr. Musk said the Wisconsin Republican was “exactly right” when the lawmaker said that additional U.S. aid to Ukraine had only prolonged a bloody stalemate and that the only way the war ends is through a negotiated settlement.
Besides being an advocate for ending the war in Ukraine, Mr. Musk has been a repeated critic of the U.S. government’s massive deficit spending.
‘Overspending Must Stop’
Mr. Musk has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s huge spending bills.
For instance in December 2021, he expressed concern for the “insane” federal deficit and said he would “can” President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill that cost over $2 trillion and was estimated by the non-profit watchdog Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget to add $160 billion to deficits over ten years.
More recently, Mr. Musk warned that a reckoning would eventually come for America’s ballooning national debt.
“US national debt growth is unsustainable,” Mr. Musk said in a Feb. 12, 2024 post. He was reacting to a post indicating that the interest payments on America’s $34 trillion national debt were already around $1 trillion a year and projected to rise to $3 trillion annually in less than ten years.
In March, Mr. Musk reacted to a post indicating that it took roughly 63 percent of all personal income taxes in February 2024 just to pay the interest on America’s $34 trillion national debt.
“Overspending must stop or America will go bankrupt,” Mr. Musk posted at the time.
Entrepreneur Ed Krassenstein reacted to Mr. Musk’s latest May 4 warning about the need to rein in out-of-control deficit spending by saying in a post that no administration is willing to tackle the national debt problem because the long-term “fix is likely a short term detriment to the economy.”
Mr. Musk replied: “Well, something’s gotta give. We should at least slow down the debt growth.”
‘Higher Taxes Are Likely’
Like Mr. Musk, billionaire investor Warren Buffett has also warned about the “important consequences” of deficit spending. However, the Berkshire Hathaway founder predicted that, when push comes to shove, the government would opt to raise taxes rather than reduce spending.
“I think higher taxes are likely,” Mr. Buffett said on May 4 at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha.
“They may decide that some day they don’t want the fiscal deficit to be this large because that has some important consequences. So they may not want to decrease spending and they may decide they’ll take a larger percentage of what we own, and we’ll pay it,” he said.
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