Elon Musk Claims Trump 'Likes To Be Liked' and Suggests Solving the Debt 'With AI and Robots'

Elon Musk says President Donald Trump 'likes to be liked' and dislikes complaints about federal spending cuts in Washington.

In remarks reported on Saturday, 17 October 2026, the Tesla chief argued that AI and robots could help address America's mounting national debt.

The comments emerged from a forthcoming interview with biographer Walter Isaacson for The Builders with Walter Isaacson, a podcast series scheduled to premiere on 20 October.

Musk reflected on his involvement in Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and the resistance he encountered to cutting government spending.

Elon Musk Says Trump's Desire To Be Liked Complicates Spending Cuts

Axios published excerpts of the interview on Saturday. Musk argued that attempts to curb waste make enemies and that the political appetite for sustained cuts is limited across the presidency, Congress and the judiciary.

He identified Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul as a rare possible exception. His assessment was an opinion, not evidence that every institution had rejected particular savings proposals.

Musk also suggested that Trump disliked receiving calls from people angry about losing federal funding. His description of the president's desire for approval was a personal interpretation, not a verified explanation for any specific White House budget decision.

The comments revisit an initiative with which Musk became closely associated during Trump's second term. On 20 January 2025, Trump signed an executive order renaming the United States Digital Service as the US DOGE Service and creating a temporary organisation to advance his efficiency agenda.

Elon Musk as Recognisable Advocate of DOGE

Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy were initially chosen to champion the broader effort. Ramaswamy withdrew on 20 January, while Musk became the project's most recognisable public advocate.

Yet Musk's formal government title was narrower than his public profile suggested. An August 2026 Government Accountability Office report identified him as a White House senior adviser and special government employee, not an administrator or employee of the US DOGE Service.

Musk left his White House position in May 2025. The temporary organisation ended on 4 July 2026 under the original executive order, which did not itself terminate the wider service.

Reflecting on his stint in Washington, Musk said he should have been 'more in the background.' He also acknowledged returning to his AI work later than he believed he should have. Those remarks don't explain how much DOGE saved or why individual proposals succeeded or failed.

Elon Musk Sees AI and Robots as an Answer to America's National Debt

Musk has turned from the political difficulty of cutting expenditure to the possibility of accelerating economic growth. He believes advances in artificial intelligence and robotics could offer a route through the debt problem, although he outlined no detailed fiscal programme.

'The only way we're going to solve the national debt is with AI and robots,' he told Isaacson. He offered no specific tax or spending package to accompany that prediction.

The numbers explain why the distinction matters. US Treasury figures put total public debt outstanding at approximately $40.39 trillion (€36.04 trillion and £30.49 trillion) on 15 October. The currency estimates use European Central Bank reference rates for the same date.

Debt and deficit are not interchangeable. A federal deficit is the gap between government spending and revenue over a period. National debt reflects accumulated borrowing, including debt held by the public and by government accounts.

Greater productivity could support economic growth and potentially increase tax receipts. But those gains would not automatically erase existing obligations, particularly if federal expenditure and borrowing also continued rising. Musk provided neither a timetable nor calculations showing how robotics would change that balance.

His optimism matches Tesla's focus on autonomous technology. The company promotes its Optimus humanoid robot and self-driving vehicle work, while Musk has previously predicted that advances in automation could enable widespread prosperity and a universal high income.

Those ambitions remain forecasts, not demonstrated solutions to government debt. Musk's remarks leave open how quickly robotic systems could be deployed at scale and how any resulting economic gains would reach the US Treasury.