In a long, wide interview with podcaster Dwarkesh Patel COMPANIONS Stripes cofounder and president John Collison on Thursday, asked the tech billionaire why he pushed for aggressive spending cuts while leading the Department of Government Efficiency when technology could increase GDP growth and ease the debt burden.

Musk responded that he was concerned about waste and fraud. That’s despite reports that massive staff cuts across the board include critical employees who need to be rehired.

“Without AI and robotics, we’re actually completely screwed because the national debt is piling up like crazy,” he added.

Interest payments alone on the $38.5 trillion debt pile are about $1 trillion a year, surpassing the US military budget, Musk pointed out.

Debt servicing costs also top spending on social programs like Medicare. But President Donald Trump has promised to increase annual defense spending to $1.5 trillion, so the defense budget can once again catch up with interest payments, at least temporarily.

Reflecting on his work at DOGE, Musk said he hopes to slow down the unsustainable financial trajectory the US is on, buying more time for AI and robotics to boost growth.

“This is the only thing that will solve the national debt. We are 1,000% bankrupt as a country, and failing as a country, without AI and robots,” he predicted. “No one else can solve the national debt. We just need enough time to build AI and robots not to go bankrupt then.”

In late November, Musk made similar comments, saying the Podcast by Nikhil Kamath that the deployment of AI and robotics “on a very large scale” is only solution to the US debt crisis.

But he warned that the increase in the output of goods and services as a result of technologies is likely to lead to significant deflation.

“This is likely because you cannot increase the money supply as fast as you increase the output of goods and services,” Musk added.

Deflation actually worsens the debt burden in real terms, while inflation eases it initially, although the resulting increase in bond yields will eventually send debt-interest payments higher.

To be sure, the US has some built-in advantages given that the dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, which allows the Treasury Department to borrow at lower interest rates than it would otherwise.

The US’s ability to issue debt in its own currency and the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying capacity also reduce the risk of an outright default.

However, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warned last month that the US is on a path that could trigger six different types of financial crisis.

While it is “impossible” to know when disaster will strike, “some kind of crisis is almost inevitable” without a course correction, the CRFB said in a report.