President Donald Trump suggested that Elon Musk’s government efficiency team has found irregularities while examining data at the U.S. Treasury Department, and intimated that may lead the U.S. to disregard some payments.

“There could be a problem, we’ve been reading about that, with Treasuries,” Trump told reporters Sunday on Air Force One en route to the Super Bowl. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he was talking about U.S. government debt, or payments processed through the Treasury Department.

“That could be an interesting problem because it could be that a lot of those things don’t count,” he said. “Therefore maybe we have less debt than we thought of.”

Trump didn’t elaborate on what problems Musk found. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has sought access to Treasury Department payments data, but Musk’s statements on social media have largely concerned payments to contractors and grant recipients, not bondholders.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate. The Treasury Department also didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last week, a federal judge temporarily blocked Musk’s government efficiency team from accessing some Treasury Department information and ordered the destruction of data they’ve already gathered in response to a lawsuit from a group of states.

—With assistance from Liz Capo McCormick.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.