You know Your Survival Guy is worried about America’s debt. It’s been rising for decades now and is reaching exponential rates of growth. Recently, Elon Musk has suggested that AI can help America solve its debt problem.
Eleanor Pringle reports in Fortune:
Economists aren’t necessarily worried by the level of national debt—nations actually need it to underpin the bond market and keep the global economy moving—but they are worried about the interest payments on the debt, and how this impacts the all-important debt-to-GDP ratio. This ratio indicates how fast a country’s economy is growing and as a result, its ability to be able to repay the debt or keep up with interest payments on the borrowing.
And those payments are rocketing: As of October 2025, it costs $104 billion to maintain the debt, which is 15% of total federal spending in fiscal year 2026. Total interest paid on the debt for FY 2025 was $1.22 trillion.
To rebalance the debt-to-GDP ratio and avoid even higher borrowing rates, a nation can either reduce its spending or stimulate its economy to rebalance the books. Musk seems to think that the latter is the best option, via a new age of growth unlocked by AI.
“As long as civilization keeps advancing, we will have AI and robotics at very large scale,” Musk told Nikhil Kamath’s podcast in an episode aired yesterday. “I think that’s pretty much the only thing that’s going to solve the U.S. debt crisis.”
He added: “Currently the U.S. debt is insanely high and the interest payments on the debt exceed the entire military budget of the United States, just the interest payments, and that’s—at least in the short term—going to continue to increase.”
Musk may be referring to the fact that in 2024, the Committee for a Responsible Budget reported that borrowing costs exceeded defense and medicaid payments for the first time.
Action Line: Watch Musk discuss AI and the future with Nikhil Kamath in the video below. And click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.
