Washington DC:
Billionaire Elon Musk, who has been tasked by newly elected President Donald Trump to rein in excessive US spending, has warned that America could be approaching the brink of bankruptcy. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and a close adviser to Mr. Trump, has been tasked with leading the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the incoming Republican administration to find ways to save taxpayers' money .
“America is currently heading towards bankruptcy at lightning speed,” Musk wrote on X (formally Twitter), the social media platform he bought in 2022.
Mr Musk wrote this in response to a post on the Department of Government Efficiency's X-handle, which noted that “the US government spent $6.16 trillion in 2023 while bringing in only $4.47 trillion.” .
America is currently heading towards bankruptcy very quickly https://t.co/Tm6JFJ6mef
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2024
“This trend must be reversed and we must balance the budget,” the DOGE account said.
During his election campaign, one of President-elect Trump's promises was the creation of DOGE to dismantle the government bureaucracy and cut wasteful spending. Earlier this year, while talking about the skyrocketing US debt, Trump had floated the idea of using Bitcoin to “pay off $35 trillion.”
The president-elect is relying on two successful businessmen – Mr Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy – to dig into the details and make recommendations to his government to curb spending.
According to a Forbes report, the US national debt surpassed $34 trillion in early 2024, largely due to Covid-19 and the stimulus measures that spiked inflation and forced the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by an all-time high. .
Mr. Trump said: “…give them a little crypto check, right? We will hand them a little bitcoin and wipe out our $35 trillion,” the Forbes report said.
After Republicans scored a 'Trifacta' of victories in the US, Musk said in a post on
The name of the DOGE division is a nod to the famous Shiba Inu dog meme from 2013, which is also linked to the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. According to Mr Musk, Dogecoin is his 'favourite' cryptocurrency and is accepted as payment by his Tesla car company.
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that works without a financial system or government agencies. According to a report from Investopedia, bitcoin can be used as an alternative to fiat currency through crypto exchanges, using peer-to-peer transfers on a digital network that records all transactions. This network is powered by a blockchain, an open-source program that links transaction histories to prevent tampering.
Bitcoin's price today is $97,455.70, which represents a change of +4.31% in the last 24 hours.