Lawrence Summers, a Democrat and former US Treasury secretary, has dismissed the idea of a US government reserve of bitcoin assets and warned of political challenges to scaling back federal spending as planned by Mr. Musk, America's first buddy. "What some people are saying, 'The idea that we should build some kind of national bitcoin reserve' is crazy," Lawrence Summers said on the TV show. "There's no reason to do that other than pandering to generous special interest campaign donors." The former Treasury secretary said that while Musk's goal is to save $2 trillion, salaries across the federal government are less than that. He stressed that most of the government's spending is related to defense and support for the elderly in America, which is politically difficult to change.