Elon Musk money prediction gets Khosla’s political warning

The Elon Musk money prediction that AI could make currency unimportant by 2036 has drawn ridicule online and a sharper warning from Vinod Khosla. Musk’s argument, made in an interview with The Economist, matters because it puts a familiar Silicon Valley claim about abundance against the harder question of who controls it.

Musk told The Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes that artificial intelligence and robotics could create more goods and services than people can use within about a decade. He said money exists to buy goods and services, and if machines produce those in excess, money would lose its role.

According to The Economist interview, Musk also said deflation, rather than inflation, would become the main economic problem in that future. He had made a similar argument earlier on the People by WTF podcast, saying money could disappear as a concept once AI and robots meet human needs without wages serving as a system for assigning labor.

What did Elon Musk mean by money won’t matter?

Musk’s point was that money is useful when goods, services and labor are scarce. In his scenario, AI and robotics would remove much of that scarcity, leaving people less dependent on wages and prices.

The prediction was widely challenged. Gizmodo described Musk’s answers to The Economist as often incoherent and said he appeared to bristle at ordinary questions about his worldview. On Reddit, a thread about the comments drew arguments over Musk’s past forecasts and whether capitalism could survive the kind of automation he described.

What did Vinod Khosla say about Musk’s forecast?

Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, responded on X by saying he would change Musk’s prediction with one condition: money would matter less in 2036 only if politics allowed broad abundance. He linked that point to his 2024 essay, “AI: Dystopia or Utopia?”, published by his firm.

Khosla’s caveat shifts the issue from technical capacity to political choice. In his view, AI may be able to generate enough productivity to improve living standards widely, but that does not mean the gains will be shared.

Replies to Khosla’s post reflected the split around the idea. One commenter dismissed the abundance premise and argued that police officers, firefighters, doctors and nurses would not work without pay. Another said Musk is often right eventually but tends to be 10 to 15 years early with predictions.

Khosla’s warning is about distribution

In his essay, Khosla warned that AI could leave a small elite better off while many others face economic pressure unless governments act. He argued that AI differs from past technologies such as the microprocessor and the internet because those tools expanded human capability, while AI can replace some human cognitive work.

Khosla has raised similar concerns for years. A Substack analysis of his writing said he warned in 2014 that AI could create both unusual abundance and a wider divide between rich and poor. Fortune has reported that Khosla’s proposed response includes universal basic income so people can live well as jobs disappear.

Khosla’s essay does not predict that governments will adopt those policies. He wrote that wage pressure, job losses and deflation could worsen inequality, depending on elected officials and their willingness to address redistribution under capitalism.

At Stanford’s FIS event, Khosla also warned of a period of productivity gains and cost cutting before a deflationary decade reshapes the global economy, according to Top1000funds.com. That view presents a rougher transition than Musk’s broad claim of post-scarcity abundance.

The disagreement is narrow but significant. Musk is describing a world where AI makes money less relevant; Khosla is warning that technology alone would not decide whether that world is broadly prosperous or sharply unequal.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.