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The world's richest man, Elon Musk, has suggested that saving money may eventually become unnecessary, arguing that advances in artificial intelligence and robotics will lead to universal high income and eliminate poverty.
Musk made the remarks Wednesday in response to a post on X by investor Ray Dalio, who said he was following Michael and Susan Dell in donating funds to help seed so-called Trump accounts. The accounts are new savings and investment vehicles for newborns and young Americans created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and are set to launch next year.
“It is certainly a nice gesture of the Dells, but there will be no poverty in the future and so no need to save money,” Musk wrote. “There will be universal high income.”
Musk has repeatedly argued that AI and robotics will fundamentally alter the nature of work, removing the need for most human labor and creating a broadly shared level of wealth. His comments have drawn attention from HR leaders grappling with workforce planning amid accelerating automation.
AI, work, and universal high income
The Tesla CEO expanded on those views during an appearance at the Viva Technology conference in Paris in May 2024. Responding to a question about whether he feared losing his own job to AI, Musk said the most likely outcome was a world in which jobs largely disappear.
“In a benign scenario, probably none of us will have a job,” Musk said. “There will be universal high income – and not universal basic income – universal high income. There’ll be no shortage of goods or services.”
Musk added that he believed there was an 80% chance that AI would create conditions in which people no longer need to work and have access to everything they require.
“The question will really be one of meaning,” he said. “If a computer can do, and the robots can do everything better than you, does your life have meaning? That really will be the question in that benign scenario.”
He warned that alternative outcomes were also possible, noting that “in the negative scenario, all bets are off where we’re in deep trouble.”
Work as choice, not necessity
Looking further ahead, Musk said he expects employment to become optional over the long term, with work functioning more like a personal interest than an economic necessity.
He said that “any job that somebody does will be optional,” adding that people could choose to work “as kinda like a hobby” if they wished. Otherwise, Musk argued, AI systems and robots would provide goods and services without human labor.
“If you want to do a job as kinda like a hobby, you can do a job,” he said, “but otherwise, the AI and robots will provide any goods and services that you want.”
Musk has previously made similarly sweeping predictions about AI and robotics, including comments in November that their widespread deployment could be the only solution to the US debt crisis and that “money will stop being relevant in the future.”
