Elon Musk said on the latest quarterly Tesla conference call, last week, that the first production line for the company’s Optimus robot would go online this year — this quarter even — and that this production line would be able to produce 1 million robots a year. This Optimus production line is replacing the Model S and Model X production lines in Fremont, California. Is Optimus really going to do more for the company than the Model S and Model X? Also, I was already going to run an article asking who is going to buy one million robots a year from Tesla. I still need to dig into that more, though, to even get a guess at what Musk and Tesla hope — and apparently expect — will change. For now, though, there’s this: In a recent appearance on the Dwarkesh Podcast, Musk said that the US is, without a doubt, headed toward bankruptcy due to our enormous national debt, and that the only way we’re going to stop that is … with robots and AI. It’s a crazy claim on multiple levels, but, yeah, Tesla’s new product is what will save the country…. “We are 1,000% going to go bankrupt as a country and fail as a country, without AI and robots,” he said. “Nothing else will solve the national debt.” Because, you know, magic. Now, it is also ironic but oh so predictable that Musk worked hard to get Republicans elected, since they have historically jacked up our national deficit the most (by far). It happens time after time that Republican presidents bring our national deficit to new records, and it was obvious Trump would do so again. That’s one of the GOP’s core, given policy agendas, yet Musk claimed that Trump and the GOP had to be elected to avoid it…. I guess now he knows the opposite was true. One would hope he’s figured it out now, but who knows what he understands? The fact that he thinks robots and AI are going to solve a clear policy issue is concerning, though. “According to the Treasury Department, U.S. national debt now stands at $38.96 trillion — and it continues to grow as federal spending outpaces revenue (2). So far in fiscal year 2026, the government has already spent about $1.17 trillion more than it has collected (3),” Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC write. “And those costs could rise further. The U.S. spent about $11.3 billion during the first week of war with Iran alone, according to the Pentagon (4). “With the conflict dragging on for nearly two months now, public policy expert Linda Bilmes estimates the war will cost Americans upwards of $1 trillion (5). […] “Costs could climb even higher under Donald Trump’s proposed 2027 defense budget. The administration has submitted a $1.5 trillion request — the largest year-over-year jump in military spending since the end of World War II (6). “According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the plan could add about $5 trillion to defense spending through 2035. Once interest costs are factored in, that figure could push the national debt up by roughly $5.8 trillion (7). “And then there’s the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates OBBBA will add $4.2 trillion to the national debt by fiscal 2034, or $4.7 trillion through 2035 — if you take into account the bill’s dynamic effect on the economy (8).” Yeah, but robots and AI are going to save us….
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