Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Tuesday that he believes the federal government is irreparably broken, following his brief stint leading the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) this year.
“The government is basically unfixable,” he said during a virtual appearance at the All-In Summit.
“It’s good to have talented people in the administration, but at the end of the day, if you look at our national debt, which is insanely high, the interest payments exceed the [Pentagon] budget and they keep rising,” Musk said, initially referring to the Defense Department, before chuckling and acknowledging the new “Department of War” rebranding.
“If AI and robots don’t solve our national debt, we’re toast,” he added.
Musk said he hasn’t returned to the nation’s capital since May after his messy falling out with President Trump over the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included massive tax cuts expected to balloon the national debt.
Trump created the Musk-led DOGE soon after his return to the White House in January — launching a sweeping overhaul of the federal workforce aimed at reducing waste, fraud and abuse. Musk heavily emphasized the use of tech, including AI, to try to modernize the government. The effort drew swift backlash as thousands of federal workers lost their jobs, major programs and contracts were gutted and DOGE employees gained access to sensitive data.
Musk didn’t directly address those criticisms at the “All-In” podcast event this week, but he previously aired his frustrations with government work and acknowledged that it hurt his business interests and professional brand.
“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” he told The Washington Post in a May interview. “Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”
