Elon Musk said that one of the wilder discoveries his Department of Government Efficiency has made is over a dozen ‘magic money computers’ that can send payments from thin air.
Musk’s DOGE has already slashed staffing at several federal agencies, cut federal spending and in an unprecedented move emailed federal employees asking ‘what they got done last week’.
Ted Cruz hosted the ‘First Buddy’ and richest man on earth on his Verdict podcast Monday and Musk did not disappoint in taking listeners inside DOGE and brought up one shocking discovery after gaining access to the Treasury Department.
‘One of the things you told me about is what you called magic money computers,’ Cruz said.
‘You may think that government computers all talk to each other, they all synchronize, they add up what funds are going somewhere and its coherent and that the numbers you’re presented as a Senator are actually the real numbers. They’re not,’ he said.
Musk said the numbers could be off by anywhere from five to percent.
‘Any computer which can just make money out of thin air, that’s magic money,’ Musk explained.
Cruz asked: ‘How does that work?’
Elon Musk said that one of the wilder discoveries his Department of Government Efficiency has made is over a dozen ‘magic money computers’ that can print currency from thin air
Ted Cruz hosted the ‘First Buddy’ and richest man on earth on his Verdict podcast Monday and Musk did not disappoint in taking listeners inside DOGE
Musk responded: ‘It just issues payments!’
The Texas Senator then said Musk claimed that the computers at the US Treasury Department were sending out ‘trillions in payments.’
‘They’re mostly at the Treasury, some are at HHS, one or two at State, there’s some at DOD, I think we’ve found 14 magic money computers,’ Musk explained.
He added: ‘They just send money out of nothing,’ alleging that they fabricate payments and send them worldwide.
Some liberal critics noted that what Musk discovered are the tenets of what’s called Modern Monetary Theory, which suggests governments do not need to worry about accumulating debt since they can pay interest by printing money.
‘Ted Cruz and Elon Musk discover the bombshell fact that MMT is true,’ wrote leftist author and Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson.
‘They’re actually kinda correct. The federal government issues money out of thin air. It’s not like a household that needs to have a dollar before spending it. The gov is the *issuer* of the dollar—so it creates it. We can either use it to pay for healthcare or fund wars overseas,’ wrote ‘The Debt Collective.’
‘Bitcoin fixes this,’ added Jameson Lopp with a more favorable look on Musk diagnosing the issue, as many of Trump and Musks fans were shocked.
Laura Windsor suggested: ‘Either Elon is dumb, which we know he’s not, or this is a cynical ploy to undermine trust in Treasury. @SecScottBessent should tell us whether he agrees with this.’
The Texas Senator then said Musk claimed that the computers at the US Treasury Department were sending out ‘trillions in payments’
Elsewhere in the episode, Elon discussed what DOGE is doing, claimed there had been ‘attempts on his life,’ and posited what life on Earth would look like in ten years.
Trump and Musk have argued that the government is wasteful and bloated. DOGE claims it has saved $105 billion in cuts, but it has only publicly documented a fraction of those savings, and its accounting has been plagued by errors.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has led the charge to slash the federal workforce under the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) but its chief spokesperson appears to be completely off-message.
DOGE has faced intense scrutiny in recent weeks for its chaotic handling of layoffs, particularly its firing of key federal employees only to attempt to rehire them later.
Among those affected were workers responsible for maintaining nuclear weapons sites across the US, a move that has raised serious national security concerns and Musk and his allies are now face mounting pressure to reassess their approach.
Some terminations are part of the Education Department’s ‘final mission,’ alluding to Trump’s vow to eliminate the department, which oversees $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil rights laws in schools and provides federal funding for needy districts.
The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 workers, down from 4,133 when Trump took office in January.
Similar closures served as a precursor to shuttering the headquarters of the US Agency for International Development, the humanitarian aid agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans against unscrupulous lenders.
Trump and Musk have argued that the government is wasteful and bloated. DOGE claims it has saved $105 billion in cuts, but it has only publicly documented a fraction of those savings, and its accounting has been plagued by errors
Among those affected were workers responsible for maintaining nuclear weapons sites across the US, a move that has raised serious national security concerns and Musk and his allies are now face mounting pressure to reassess their approach
So far, DOGE has cut more than 100,000 jobs across the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign aid and canceled thousands of programs and contracts, despite dozens of lawsuits challenging the legality of those moves.
DOGE’s blunt approach has frustrated several White House officials and Republican lawmakers, some of whom have confronted angry constituents at town halls.
Trump told department heads last week that they, not Musk, have the final say on staffing, his first notable public move to restrain the Tesla CEO.
All US government agencies have been ordered to come up with large-scale layoff plans by Thursday, setting up the next phase of Trump’s cost-cutting campaign.
Several agencies have offered employees payments to retire early to fulfill Trump’s demand.
Affected Education Department employees will be placed on administrative leave starting on March 21, the department said.
Other agencies have offered lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to workers who agree to leave their jobs.
Among these are the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Food and Drug Administration.
