Elon Musk says that in 10 to 20 years, work will be optional and money will be irrelevant thanks to AI and robotics | Fortune

https://fortune.com/2025/11/20/elon-musk-tesla-ai-work-optional-money-irrelevant/

29 Comments

  1. Yup, by all means, let’s listen to what this homunculus has to say. Not like he’s got a long laundry list of lies and failures behind him or something.

  2. Ok. How?

    It’s like when I went to Epcot in the 80s and saw the part where they showed a family in the near future living under water. At 7 years old, I was like…ok. How?

  3. Joseph20102011 on

    “In the future, Elon Musk sees humans as metaphorical vegetable farmers.

    The [Tesla](https://fortune.com/company/tesla/) CEO said at the [U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wux3uZotVg) in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that in the next 10 to 20 years, work will be optional, likening the decision to have a job to the more laborious upkeep of a vegetable garden.

    “My prediction is that work will be optional. It’ll be like playing sports or a video game or something like that,” Musk said. “If you want to work, [it’s] the same way you can go to the store and just buy some vegetables, or you can grow vegetables in your backyard. It’s much harder to grow vegetables in your backyard, and some people still do it because they like growing vegetables.”

    The future of optional work will be the result of millions of robots in the workforce able to usher in a wave of enhanced productivity, according to Musk. The tech mogul, [worth about $470 billion](https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/), has made the recent push to expand Tesla beyond just electric vehicles, working on [consolidating his sprawling business interests](https://fortune.com/2025/07/14/elon-musk-promises-tesla-shareholders-vote-buying-equity-grok-startup-xai/) into his broader vision of an AI-fueled, robotic-powered future. That includes his goal of having [80% of Tesla’s value](https://fortune.com/2025/09/02/elon-musk-optimus-robots-tesla-master-plan/) come from his Optimus robots, despite continuous [production delays](https://fortune.com/article/elon-musk-tesla-optimus-robots-china-rare-earths/) for the humanoid bots.”

  4. That’s a roundabout way of saying that 95% of the population will have no place in the economy.

  5. god, I hope that’s true. Musks money becoming irrelevant in particular, so nobody has to care about his opinions anymore

  6. Ah yes, the concept of a post-scarcity society … coming from a 400 billion USD Nazi.

    What could possibly go wrong?`

    SYL

  7. MoCitytrackfan on

    They said the same thing in the 70’s about computers. Instead of leisure time, we got layoffs, corporate profits and increasing CEO salaries.

  8. In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes predicted by 2030 we would be working 15 hours a week. There is still 5 years left, I suppose.

    We could all be working 15 hours a week if our economic system were set up that way. We are immensely more productive than we were a hundred years ago.

    I feel the same thing is true with this prediction. In 20 years it might be possible that we are far more productive again. And I also feel like we will be working just as hard or harder and our lives will be more miserable. We need to change the political system to make the economy actually work for us.

  9. EverydayFunHotS on

    Utterly impossible. It’s not a matter of productivity but of politics and governance.

    Humanity is more productive now yet we work more compared to half a century ago.

    When some humans aren’t needed for productivity they’ll simply be left behind.

  10. TheMailNeverFails on

    May as well ask a random off the street that they think and write about that, Elon doesn’t really have any credibility left

  11. Teamfreshcanada on

    This would require socialized wealth distribution to the population. People without jobs will have no income stream without a universal basic income, or a universal distribution of goods and services. Something that I feel is antithetical to Elon’s desired future.

  12. There will always be a division between haves and have-nots. Money may be irrelevant, but what will the new dividing line end up being? Probably some kind of social control. Those who play nice with the system can participate, those who do not will be locked out. Who will be the new billionaires? Well those who have been determined to be experts, of course! Same system, different means of control. Nothing new under the sun.

  13. romance_in_durango on

    Based on the accuracy of his other predictions, this will never happen, and instead we will all work for AI and the robots.

  14. **In the business world, this is what is conventionally referred to as a “marketing ploy.”**

    Capital class tycoons have used the notion of technology leading to more wealth and less work since at least the 19th century (that I know of), and the Industrial Revolution, the Computer Age, and several other milestones have come and gone.

    But the only real progress that led to more wealth and less work was the pro-labor, pro-union, New Deal era policies that expanded rights and guarantees for all Americans.

    **The wealthy want you to think they are going to “take care of everything for you.”** But when has a billionaire ever given away something they weren’t forced to give away?

    These are the same guys who pretend they are giving their fortunes away to charity, when all they’re actually doing is shunting their enormous wealth into one of many tax dodges (non-profits can hide billions, tax-free, so long as they spend a tiny amount of their endowment each year).

    So, no, **AI and the rich will not save us from the societal structure they built and benefit from.** They are simply using that lie to diminish oversight and resistance to a series of policies that will only harm the average person across the world far more than it benefits them.

    **Soon, they will not need you for anything.** So why do you think that *(the moment where all your leverage is gone)* will be the moment they will give you the world – for free?

  15. Chuck_L_Fucurr on

    If that were true he would simply help out people now with some of the Trillion dollars he has

  16. sffiremonkey69 on

    And that’s why he has a trillion dollar pay package… because money won’t mean anything

  17. Only way to do this is by legislation because if let be companies will Maximize profit above all ELSE. I wish I could have been the one interviewing Musk because a good follow-up would be. If Advancement in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics makes it more productive to have them do the things we don’t want to do how would we setup society in such a way where your livelihood is not tied to your job?