“It would be accurate to say that even unless you could go like super draconian … on cutting waste waste and fraud which you can’t really do in a democratic country then …. there’s no way to solve the the the debt crisis,” Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan.

U.S. debt has skyrocketed in recent years following huge government spending through the Covid-era and lockdowns, with interest rates that were rapidly hiked to rein in inflation adding to the cost of servicing the ballooning $38 trillion U.S. debt pile.

“The interest on a national debt is bigger than the entire the entire military budget and growing. This is crazy,” Musk told Rogan during their marathon three-hour conversation.

Musk, who joined the Trump administration via his Doge department of government efficiency, dramatically fell out with president Donald Trump earlier this year over Trump’s signature tax and spend bill that’s expected to add trillions of dollars to the national debt over the next decade.

Musk then confirmed speculation his new America Party would adopt bitcoin, calling the U.S. dollar and other so-called fiat currencies that aren’t backed by assets, “hopeless.”

However, Musk appears to have since all-but given up on the idea of preventing the U.S. from falling into “bankruptcy” via cost-cutting.

“Even if you implement all these savings, you’re only delaying the day of reckoning for when America becomes goes bankrupt,” Musk said. “I came to the conclusion that the only way that the only way to get us out of the debt crisis and to prevent America from going bankrupt is AI and robotics. We need to grow the economy at a rate that allows us to pay off our debt.”

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The spiraling U.S. debt pile topped $38 trillion last month, up, $500 billion in October alone, according to analysts with The Kobeissi Letter.

“It is a horrible, no good situation,” Anthony Pompliano, a bitcoin and crypto influencer and the chief executive of Professional Capital Management, wrote in an emailed note.

“The only thing I know to do is opt-out of the broken system with some portion of my economic value. The higher the national debt goes, the higher bitcoin will go. And it doesn’t appear either of them will stop any time soon.”