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Musk details Treasury shortcomings, ‘grey boundary between waste and fraud’

March 1, 2025 | | Print Article

Elon Musk is breaking down the situation at the United States Treasury which he says is “improving rapidly,” and it’s something every American needs to hear.

Musk joined Joe Rogan’s podcast to reveal what’s really going on behind the scenes as President Donald Trump’s administration attempts to clean up waste and fraud on behalf of taxpayers. Specifically, he spoke about the mind-blowing lack of accountability at the U.S. Treasury.

Watch:

“To give you an example of what’s happening, at say the Treasury, which is improving rapidly, the main payments computer is called PAM, Payment Accounts Master or something like that, but everyone calls it PAM. That’s responsible for $5T a year, roughly $1B an hour,” he explained.

“When we came we saw the payments had … no payment categorization code and no description of the payment. Like, basically untraceable blank checks. This is the kind of thing that if it was done as a public company, the company would be immediately delisted and the executive team would be thrown in prison. But this is just normal at the government,” he continued.  “So we said okay, our recommendation to the Treasury and the Federal Reserve is we need to make the payment categorization codes mandatory, not optional, and there needs to be an explanation, we’re not judging the quality of the explanation, but there should be some explanation of what this payment is for, above nothing.”

“That’s a radical change to the system that is being implemented now. My guess is that probably saves $100 billion a year,” Musk noted.

Rogan was visibly shocked by this statement, asking Musk where that money had been going. Musk had an answer, but it wasn’t necessarily reassuring.

“So this is where you get into the grey boundary between waste and fraud. If money is sent to a person or organization from the government and you didn’t deserve it, but the government sent it, is that waste or fraud?” he asked.

“Right,” Rogan responded.

“There were a lot of payments where someone just approved the payment but then that payment officer changed jobs, or retired or died, and the payments just keep going. Like if you forgot to pay your gym membership, but your gym membership costs $20 billion a year. But they forgot to turn it off. That’s happening at scale in the government. It’s totally nuts,” Musk said.

X users were also shocked by the sheer level of carelessness being exhibited by America’s institutions:

Sierra Marlee
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