If Elon Musk’s latest prediction comes true, the next generation—or perhaps even the current one—may witness one of the biggest scientific and technological turning points in human history.
Speaking at the US–Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, Musk argued that rapid advances in artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics could make traditional work optional and potentially eliminate global poverty.
Sharing a video of his remarks on X with the caption “Poverty is an engineering problem,” Musk said that in the “long term”—which he defined as roughly 10 to 20 years—most jobs would no longer be essential for human survival or the economy.
“My prediction is that work will be optional,” he said. “It will be like choosing to play sports or video games.
You could buy vegetables from a store or grow them yourself—it’s harder, but some still do it because they enjoy it.”
Musk went even further, suggesting that as AI systems grow more advanced, the very idea of money will lose its meaning.
“Money will stop being important or relevant in the future. Currency becomes irrelevant,” he claimed.
He emphasized that the true economic revolution would come from robotics: “AI and human robots will actually eliminate poverty.
There’s basically only one way to make everyone wealthy, and that is AI robotics… and there will be many companies building human robots.”
According to the Associated Press, Musk echoed this vision repeatedly at the event, insisting that robots could “make everyone wealthy.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is positioning AI at the center of its economic strategy.
AP reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has committed around USD 1 trillion in investments with US companies, much of it focused on transforming Saudi Arabia into a global AI data hub.
Trump declared that the US aims to build “the largest, most powerful, most innovative AI ecosystem in the world.”
Among those attending the forum were Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang and Musk himself.
While sharing the stage with Musk, Huang offered a more cautious outlook. He agreed that AI will dramatically reshape the workforce, but stopped short of predicting the end of traditional jobs altogether.
“Everybody’s jobs will be different—that’s for sure,” Huang said, according to AP.
Trump later asked Huang whether any nation could match Nvidia’s powerful Blackwell chip, a key component in today’s AI systems. Huang responded simply: “Not yet, sir.”
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