The United States, heaving under a record national debt of around $39 trillion (£29.12 trillion) as of March 2026, is '1,000% going to go bankrupt' unless artificial intelligence and robots transform the economy within a few years, Elon Musk has warned in recent interviews.
The warning lands just as America's debt burden pushes beyond levels last seen in the aftermath of the Second World War. Interest payments alone now exceed the entire US defence budget, according to watchdog estimates, and the gap between what Washington spends and what it raises grows wider each year.
