Elon Musk Says AI and Robotics Will Make Money 'Irrelevant'
By: Henry Chandonnet (Business Insider)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Henry Chandonnet
"At some point, currency becomes irrelevant," Elon Musk said at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum.Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters 2025-11-19T21:34:34.405Z This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Log in.
- Elon Musk predicted a future where money will "stop being relevant," thanks to AI and robotics.
- Speaking at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, Musk also said that work would become "optional."
- Musk has previously said that AI robotics, like Tesla's Optimus, would eliminate poverty.
In Elon Musk's future, we won't need jobs or money, and there will be no poverty.
At the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum on Monday, where Musk sat on a panel with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Musk said that money would "stop being relevant" thanks to AI.
"There will still be constraints on power like electricity and mass," Musk said. "But I think at some point currency becomes irrelevant."
He linked it to the books of science fiction author Iain Banks, who wrote the Culture series between 1987 and 2012. Those books help "get a sense for what a probable positive AI future is like," he said.
Musk also mentioned the end of work itself, saying that it will be "optional," like "playing sports or a video game."
He compared the future of work to gardening. "It's much harder to grow vegetables in your backyard, but some people still do it because they like growing vegetables," he said."That will be what work is like: optional."
Over the past few months, Musk has shared his vision for a future with AI. That includes ending poverty, something he described at a recent investor meeting.
"People often talk about eliminating poverty, giving everyone amazing medical care," Musk said at the shareholder event earlier this month. "There's actually only one way to do that, and that's with the Optimus robot."
When AI and robotics, like Tesla's Optimus, eliminate all work and money, the government should hand out a universal income, Musk told Joe Rogan in October.
That income shouldn't just be a universal basic income — it should be a universal high income, he said.
"We'll have, in a benign scenario, universal high income," Musk said. "Anyone can have any products or services that they want. But there will be a lot of trauma and disruption along the way."
After describing the future irrelevance of money at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, Musk ribbed his panelmate, Nvidia's Huang.
"By the way, the Nvidia earnings call is today," Musk said. Nvidia will report its third-quarter earnings after the closing bell.
"Since currency is irrelevant…," Huang said.
"Cheers," Musk said. The CEOs clinked their bottles of Acqua Panna.
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Lobotomies for everyone.
Speaking at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, Elon Musk predicted a future where money is "irrelevant"
I know some folks who are predicting that in the future Elon Musk will be "irrelevant"....
In my opinion, you fundamentally misunderstand what Musk is talking about. He's essentially talking about a concept called "post-scarcity society," where AI and automation require little or no human involvement in providing for human need. This does not necessarily indicate that all will be equally rich or have equal access to everything. That would depend upon the totality of resources available. No matter how advanced AI and automation might become, it would be impossible for everyone to have sprawling estates full of luxury, for instance, as Earth is only so big.
And while there may be people who think Musk may be deemed irrelevant to future people, to have anything like a meaningfully plentiful post-scarcity society, what Musk is doing is indispensable to the task. Earth has only so many resources. Only so much land. If we want some sort of Star Trek level of society, we must develop space. We must get our resources from off planet. If we want to keep our planet livable, we need to get resources off earth so we don't end up strip mining the planet. We need to develop the ability to live elsewhere in the solar system. Hopefully, in extra-solar locations.
Musk has faults, just like anyone else, but what he's trying to do for humanity concerning space is important. I seriously doubt future generations will think him unimportant.
I wish my dreams of a future world were so utopian, but unfortunately human nature will not permit it, and my prediction is that the future will be more dystopian. I'm glad I will not live to see the day when it will be much worse than it is today.
As it happens, I agree. There will never be a utopia through human effort for exactly the reason you mentioned. human nature. My comment was geared towards what would be necessary for the attempt, not the reality.
I agree, although I think the world is already more dystopian than you realize. Like the analogy of the frog slowly boiling to death in a pot of water, we're used to what is and that tends to blind us. We just see it as normal because we adapt to it. We don't question it. We just move forward under the reality rather than change it.
When AI and robotics, like Tesla's Optimus, eliminate all work and money, the government should hand out a universal income, Musk told Joe Rogan in October.
That income shouldn't just be a universal basic income — it should be a universal high income, he said.
"We'll have, in a benign scenario, universal high income," Musk said. "Anyone can have any products or services that they want. But there will be a lot of trauma and disruption along the way."
Should, shouldn’t, should … can. This is 180 degrees from capitalism. The trauma is going to be vicious. That’s why Musk wants a trillion dollars - to house an army of robots.
The "trauma" is going to be the 75% unemployment rate that is coming. At first this was predicted for the end of this century but AI is advancing so fast it will almost surely be sooner.
Says the guy worth almost a trillion dollars.
This was Marx's prediction – that technology would someday increase productivity to a point where money and exchange become unnecessary and obsolete, and most work would practically disappear.
I guess Musk is channeling Marx now, but I wonder if he understands that the AI and Robotics would have to belong to everyone? What is produced by the means of production rightfully belongs to the owners of the means of production. Everyone would need to be a co-owner to rightfully share in the cornucopia of goods and services Musk is talking about. In other words, common ownership of the means of production – communism. Or is Musk imagining that only a few elites will own it, and everyone else becomes even more servile and dependent on them than they already are in present-day capitalism? That would a be a dystopian nightmare.
Bingo.
It's not going to happen no matter what Musk says. Never,
Are the robots and AI feeding the world?
DOGE and Trump cut USAID causing thousands to starve.
They just had a government shutdown that has halted SNAP benefits for needy families here in America.
Is he totally unaware of hunger in America or in Musk's home country of Africa?
Does Musk know where food comes from and on what scale of production is needed to eliminate poverty?
He has enough money to eliminate poverty TODAY!
The billionaires of the world could eliminate every suffering on earth but choose to wallow in wealth and their own insane babbling about what they "think".
Apparently the entire actual human race is a fiction to these billionaire out of touch weirdos.