The Blubber

President Donald Trump hinted that Elon Musk’s government efficiency team may have discovered irregularities while reviewing data at the U.S. Treasury Department, suggesting it could lead the U.S. to disregard some payments.

“There could be a problem, you’ve been reading about that, with Treasuries,” Trump told reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One en route to the Super Bowl. It wasn’t immediately clear if he was referring to 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,” Trump said. “Therefore, maybe we have less debt than we thought.”

Trump did not specify what issues Musk’s team might have found. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has reportedly sought access to Treasury Department payments data. However, Musk’s public comments on social media have mostly focused on payments to government contractors and grant recipients, rather than bondholders.

The White House and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.

Last week, a federal judge temporarily barred Musk’s team from accessing certain Treasury Department data and ordered the destruction of information already collected in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of state governments.

Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury futures opened steady in early Asia trading on Monday, suggesting that 10-year yields are likely to remain largely unchanged at the market's open at 9 a.m.