Elon Musk, the Tesla billionaire who has become a close advisor to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, surprised people with an unexpected crypto endorsement this week.
Musk has repeatedly warned in recent weeks that out-of-control U.S. government spending could trigger a U.S. “financial emergency“—as wild rumors of nation-state bitcoin adoption help fuel a bitcoin price explosion toward $100,000.
Now, as traders bet that Trump will follow through with an outlandish plan to create a bitcoin strategic reserve and wipe out the U.S.’s $35 trillion debt with bitcoin, Elon Musk has backed Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive and bitcoin price bull Howard Lutnick for Trump’s Treasury secretary.
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Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, who has repeatedly warning of U.S. financial collapse, has helped the … [+]
“My view, for what it’s worth, is that [Scott] Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas Howard Lutnick will actually enact change,” Musk posted to X. “Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another.”
U.S. national debt has skyrocketed in recent years, crossing the $34 trillion mark at the beginning of 2024 as Covid stimulus measures sent inflation spiraling out of control and raised fears of “cataclysmic collapse.”
Musk was responding to an X post made by money manager Kyle Bass who called hedge fund CEO Bessent “eminently more qualified than Howard Lutnick to run the U.S. Treasury.”
Musk said he’d be “open to” interviewing Bessent and Lutnick on an X Spaces broadcast as his endorsement pushed Lutnick’s odds of winning the Treasury secretary role to more-or-less even with Bessent on the crypto-powered prediction platform Polymarket.
Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr., named this week as Trump’s Health secretary pick, also backed Lutnick for Trump’s Treasury secretary, posting in reply to Bass that “bitcoin will have no stronger advocate” than Lutnik.
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The bitcoin price has surged higher this year, rocketing since Donald Trump won the White House and … [+]
“Bitcoin is the currency of freedom, a hedge against inflation for middle class Americans, a remedy against the dollar’s downgrade from the world’s reserve currency, and the offramp from a ruinous national debt,” RFK Jr. wrote.
Earlier this month, Lutnick, who is leading Trump’s White House transition team, told investor and YouTuber Anthony Pompliano that he has “hundreds of millions of dollars of exposure” to bitcoin.
“It will be billions,” said Lutnick, who manages the assets for the $127 billion USDT stablecoin issuer Tether through Cantor Fitzgerald. “Bitcoin, which is rare and is special, will become ever more rare, ever more valuable, over time it’ll be financed just like gold [and] oil. Bitcoin will be way, way, way higher—sometimes lower—you just have to have faith.”
