Elon Musk: You Can’t Spend Trillions More Than You Earn and Expect Nothing Bad to Happen

Elon Musk in 2021 on the U.S. deficit: You can't not expect something bad to happen.

“The federal budget deficit is insane, like $3 trillion. Federal expenditures are $7 trillion. Federal revenue is $4 trillion. That's a $3 trillion difference.

If this was a company, it'd be a $3 trillion loss. I don't know if we should be adding to that loss. That seems pretty crazy. Something's got to give.

You can't just spend $3 trillion more than you earn every year and don't expect something bad to happen. I think this is not good.

The deficit is more than $3 trillion when you look at the future obligations. It's $7 trillion of current expenditures. But it's much more than that if you look at future obligations for Social Security, Medicare, and so forth. We're running this incredible deficit. Something's got to give. This just can't keep going.”

Interview with the WSJ, December 7, 2021