- Elon Musk and his band of “geniuses” at DOGE say there could be some $1 billion a week being paid out by the Treasury to fraudulent accounts. President Trump told reporters this could tip the scales in America’s multitrillion national debt headache, though Musk’s figure is only a fraction of interest payments alone.
President Donald Trump believes America’s $36.2 trillion national debt—and its corresponding interest payments—might actually be smaller than estimated owing to fraud.
The commander in chief told reporters on board Air Force One this weekend that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will investigate “Treasuries,” also known as T-bills—market shorthand for government debt securities that can be purchased by members of the public and investment vehicles.
Speaking en route to the Super Bowl, Trump explained: “The whole country looks like it’s a fraud. It’s fraud, waste, abuse. What Elon and his group of geniuses have found is unbelievable—and that’s just in USAID.
“Soon we’re going into education—you’ll find the same thing but bigger. Soon we’re going into the military, and you’re going to find a lot of bad things happening there. You’ll find it because our government hasn’t functioned properly for many many years.”
He continued: “We’re even looking at Treasuries. There could be a problem ... with Treasuries. And that could be an interesting problem because it could be that a lot of those things don’t count. In other words, that some of that stuff that we’re finding is very fraudulent. Therefore, maybe we have less debt than we thought of.”
President Trump did not specify whether he was referring to T-bills or government payments made via the Treasury Department.
However, when DOGE boss Musk took to X—the social media platform he owns—to share how he believes such fraud is taking place, he referred to payments handed out by the Treasury.
“Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no [Social Security number] or even a temporary ID number,” Musk posted on Saturday.
“If accurate, this is extremely suspicious. When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!!
“This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.”
As such, the Tesla boss refers to “entitlement” payments—such as Medicare and Social Security—and not low-risk government debt bonds.
Musk made this point after outlining a raft of measures he has introduced alongside the Treasury.
These include introducing categorization codes for payments to make auditing more straightforward; a do-not-pay list of entities which are fraudulent, or related to deceased individuals; and the launch of a “rationale field” for payments so that the spending can be justified.
To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2025
- Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making…
Is Treasury fraud a new phenomenon?
Individuals committing fraud against the Treasury is not new; work continued to redress the issue under the Biden administration.
In 2024, for example, the Treasury announced it had recovered $4 billion in fraudulent payments by deploying AI to expedite the identification process.
Fraud can occur, for example, when the government isn’t informed that an individual has died. As such, erroneous payments to this person may continue after their death.
In January, the Treasury Department announced it prevented and recovered more than $31 million in five months after it tested a pilot using the Social Security Administration’s Full Death Master File.
As such, the department could pinpoint which accounts it should no longer pay into, with the millions of dollars recovered described by former fiscal assistant secretary David Lebryk as the “tip of the iceberg.”
However, these figures are still some way below the $50 billion in fraud alleged by Musk.
National debt concerns
Some potentially positive news on national debt will be a relief for everyone from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
The economy veterans, along with a host of other market watchers and experts, have become increasingly concerned by Uncle Sam’s growing deficit and, more important, the interest payments that accompany it.
Experts are most alarmed by America’s debt-to-GDP ratio. Simply put, the money it owes versus the growth of the economy and hence, its ability to service its debt.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), for example, estimates that national debt will balloon to $50.7 trillion—122.4% of GDP—in 2034.
As such, interest payments are expected to sit at around $1.7 trillion by that same year.
Experts fear that if America’s economy does not remain strong enough to foot the bills it is racking up, at some point, lenders will stop buying the debt, will begin asking for higher interest payments, or will call in their loans—a market “rebellion” as Dimon phrases it.
Policymakers have two options to bring this balance of debt and GDP back into line.
The first—and widely preferred choice—is to grow the economy through progressive policies. The second would be to cut debt, which experts worry would include axing public services and support.
Musk’s apparent uncovering of fraud presents a win-win situation: reducing expected payments without cutting public services.
However, while $50 billion a year in savings is an eye-watering amount, it is still a fraction even of the net interest costs America paid out in 2023 (the latest available data), which totaled $658 billion.
