Musk believes AI and humanoid robots will make work optional and render money irrelevant.
- Separately, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev argues property, scarcity, and incentives ensure money remains central to human behavior.
- Both leaders agree that AI will blur the line between work and play.
- The Tesla chief’s comments came days after Tesla shareholders approved an unprecedented $1 trillion pay package for him.
Tesla, Inc. CEO Elon Musk said that work will become optional due to the emergence of artificial intelligence and humanoid robots, and money would become irrelevant. But not all Wall Street executives agree.
“My prediction is that work will be optional,” Musk said. “It’ll be like playing sports or a video game … 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, but some people still do because they like growing vegetables. That will be what work is like — optional.”
Speaking at a panel discussion during the U.S.-Saudi economic summit, Musk had said that if there are continued improvements in AI and robotics, money would become “irrelevant” at some point in the future.
Meanwhile, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev noted that work and entertainment will increasingly converge, becoming one. However, he believed that money would still play a role in the future, because private property and scarce assets aren’t going anywhere.
What Did Tenev Say?
In a post on X, Tenev, whose firm is increasingly bolstering its financial services offering, said money will remain important with artificial superintelligence because “we will still have private property, which necessitates money.”
“There will continue to be scarce assets like prime real estate, front row concert tickets, even NFTs with good provenance,” he added. Tenev added that money will be paid to play games and engage in other activities currently considered leisure. “Consider chess, one of the first intellectual domains in which AI achieved superhuman performance. People were saying chess was dead after Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997. Now, nearly 30 years later, the chess industry is 5-10x bigger with over 3x the grandmasters.”
What Is The Retail Mood?
Retail sentiment on Stocktwits about both Robinhood and Tesla was in the ‘neutral’ territory.
Musk’s $1 Trillion Pay Package
The Tesla chief’s comments came days after Tesla shareholders approved an unprecedented $1 trillion pay package for him, reaffirming investor confidence in Musk’s leadership as the company expands deeper into artificial intelligence and robotics.
The performance-based package requires Tesla to meet ambitious operational and financial milestones, including 20 million vehicle deliveries, 10 million active FSD subscriptions, 1 million Optimus robots, and 1 million robotaxis in commercial service.
Wedbush analysts have stated that Tesla could reach a $2 trillion market capitalization by early 2026 and $3 trillion by the end of that year if production of its autonomous and robotics roadmap scales as planned.
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