World’s Richest Man Says Don’t Bother Saving for Retirement

Elon Musk, who just went to court to fight for a $139 billion compensation package despite already being worth an estimated $700 billion, says you shouldn’t worry your pretty little head about saving your own money. In an appearance on the podcast Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, the world’s richest man told listeners, “One side recommendation I have is: Don’t worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years. It won’t matter.â€

Musk’s theory is basically that AI will become so capable that it’ll drop the cost of everything so much that money won’t really matter. Everyone will have “universal high income.†Diamandis, arguably best known in recent years as the guy who hosted a $30,000 per seat event in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic that resulted in the majority of attendees getting infected, hopped on the hype train, too, explaining that he believes that AI will ultimately lead to “basically demonetizing everything†because “the cost of labor has gone to nothing, the cost of intelligence has gone to nothing.â€

Diamandis, managing to at least keep a toe on the ground despite the amount of hot air filling his head, did acknowledge that this future of basically unlimited profitability for corporations only works if people still have money to buy things. So how does that money end up in people’s pockets if we’ve removed them from the labor pool?

The host asked Musk, “Is that [corporate profitability] then taxed by the government and redistributed as some level of income as [universal high income] or [universal basic income]?†Musk hemmed and hawed for a moment, seemingly unwilling to acknowledge any role for the government in such a scenario. Instead, he pivoted to his pitch that you shouldn’t bother saving for retirement.

That response produced an uncomfortable pause in the conversation, presumably because Diamandis is less enthusiastic about telling his audience to YOLO all their money on the promise of discovering an infinite money glitch. “If any of the things that we’ve said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant,†Musk said while Diamandis tried to wrap his mind around it.

Once he finally processed Musk’s “saving your money is pointless†pitch, Diamandis seemingly suggested Musk’s vision could work because “The services will be there to support you. You’ll have the home, you’ll have the healthcare, you’ll have the entertainment.†He then asked Musk how far we are from the singularity, because that is what needs to be achieved to make this future a reality.

“We’re in the singularity,†Musk said, before adding, “We’re at the top of the roller coaster, and it’s about to go down,†apparently unaware of what that analogy actually suggests. “I think we’ll hit [artificial general intelligence] next year in ’26,†Musk said, “I’m confident by 2030, AI will exceed the intelligence of all humans combined.â€

Musk has been on this for a bit with AGI, the ill-defined idea best summarized as a hypothetical AI capable of matching and surpassing the cognitive abilities of humans. Last month, he started floating the idea that his company, xAI, will crack AGI in 2026. Of course, in 2024, he claimed that AGI would be achieved in 2025, and in 2023, he was calling for a pause in the development of AI, so we wouldn’t hit AGI because of the existential risks it would pose. So, you know, take his view of the whole thing with a grain of salt. Musk’s predictions are historically indicative of one thing, which is that he needs more money, and making an outlandish and unlikely claim will result in more people throwing cash at him for fear of missing out.

Here’s the thing with Musk’s pitch not to save cash for when you’re unable to work: other than theoretically shrinking your spending power in the present, there’s really no harm to putting money away. If his prediction comes true, you’ll have access to everything you need, including the luxuries you didn’t buy before. If it doesn’t, you’ll have savings to draw from. There is active harm in listening to him if he’s wrong. This is the same guy who called Social Security, a social insurance program that has kept more than two-thirds of our seniors out of poverty in retirement, a Ponzi scheme, and pushed to cut it.

So in Musk’s ideal future, you have no savings, there is no social safety net, and he continues to be the world’s richest man. And maybe he’ll support some effort to give you some money so you can keep buying his stuff—as long as it’s not done by increasing taxes and redistributing wealth. Pretty sweet gig for him. Good luck to the rest of us.