Elon Musk, CEO of several tech companies, recently criticized the U.S. government’s automated payment systems, calling them “magic money computers” that create payments “out of thin air.” He claimed these systems cause a disconnect between reported government spending and actual fund disbursement. Musk highlighted 14 such automated systems within the U.S. Treasury and other federal agencies, which can issue payments without needing traditional approval or verifiable justification.

He argued that these systems compromise the accountability of federal spending and may be responsible for discrepancies in spending reports. In some departments, actual expenditures could be off by as much as five percent compared to what is reported to Congress. According to Musk, these systems operate independently, issuing payments without cross-referencing centralized data, leading to inaccurate reporting of government spending. This has raised concerns among fiscal watchdogs and policy experts.