Elon Musk said that the U.S. Treasury should send direct payments to Americans in the future, arguing that advances in artificial intelligence could make work largely optional and fundamentally reshape how wealth is distributed. He also argued that deflation could become the bigger economic challenge as AI dramatically lowers the cost of producing goods and services. While DOGE reported billions of dollars in projected savings, federal spending continued to rise during that period. Musk suggested that future economic policy may need to shift away from focusing primarily on spending reductions if AI significantly boosts productivity. Instead, he argued that governments may eventually need mechanisms to distribute the benefits created by increasingly autonomous technologies.