The idea that Elon Musk might soon align himself with hard-line Bitcoin orthodoxy stopped being a fringe meme overnight. It began when long-time BTC advocate and broadcaster Max Keiser declared on X yesterday that the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive “is on the brink of going FULL BITCOIN MAXIMALIST.”
Keiser’s claim was prompted by a salvo of posts from Musk condemning the Republican “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a sweeping reconciliation measure that would extend the 2017 tax cuts and raise the statutory debt ceiling by roughly $5 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office’s score shows that the bill would widen primary deficits by about $2.4 trillion over the next decade, swelling to roughly $3 trillion once interest costs are included.
Musk framed the legislation as the tipping point for an already dangerous fiscal trajectory. “We pay over $100 billion per month in interest on the national debt. $1.2 trillion per year. That is about 25 % of all government revenue,” he posted, warning that if unchecked deficit spending continues “there will only be money for interest payments and nothing else! No Social Security, no medical, no defense … nothing.” In a separate post, he blasted the United States as being “in the fast lane to debt slavery.”
While Musk’s figures reflect forward-looking calculations rather than the Treasury’s official $909 billion net-interest line-item for fiscal 2024, the direction is corroborated by CBO projections that put annual net-interest outlays above $950 billion next year and well past $1.8 trillion by 2035 if policy remains unchanged.
Elon Is One Step Away From Going Full Bitcoin Maxi
The exchange that lit up Bitcoin circles came when Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong posted: “If the electorate doesn’t hold congress accountable to reducing the deficit, and start paying down the debt, Bitcoin is going to take over as reserve currency. I love Bitcoin, but a strong America is also super important for the world. We need to get our finances under control.”
Musk responded with a solitary US-flag emoji, an acknowledgment many interpreted as silent assent.
Bitcoiners quickly seized on the signal. Investor Cory Bates urged, “It’s time to utter the safe word,” reviving Musk’s 2020 quip “Bitcoin is my safe word.” Joe Burnett of Unchained Capital said Musk was “incredibly close to fully embracing a Saylor-like bitcoin treasury strategy with Tesla, SpaceX, and X.”
Analyst Will Clemente mused that Musk’s “Bitcoin maxi arc [is] next,” while Anthony Pompliano argued that the “biggest middle finger Elon Musk could give to the establishment politicians hell bent on wasting taxpayer money would be to publicly buy billions of dollars of Bitcoin.” Author Adam Livingston added that BTC “neutralizes debt slavery by anchoring capital to finite, incorruptible energy … you can’t inflate 21 M.”
Tesla already owns 9,720 BTC — a position marked to $1.08 billion at year-end 2024 and now estimated above $1.25 billion after BTC’s spring rally — but the company has neither added to that stack since late 2024 nor adopted it as a functional treasury reserve à la MicroStrategy. Musk’s latest comments stop short of announcing such a pivot, yet they place him rhetorically alongside figures who argue that Bitcoin is the only credible hedge against fiscal profligacy.
Whether this episode represents a genuine ideological shift or another of Musk’s high-visibility thought experiments remains uncertain. What is clear is that the billionaire’s critique of US debt dynamics now echoes core talking points of Bitcoin’s most uncompromising proponents.
At press time, BTC traded at $104,709.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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