Musk Says Superintelligence Will Render Savings Meaningless

On X, Elon Musk wrote: "With the emergence of abundance brought by superintelligence, saving money for the distant future is meaningless." Musk is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and he posted the line as a direct reply to a user who said they no longer worried about uncertain financial decisions because an era of abundance would likely make many such concerns irrelevant in a few years.

This is not the first time the world's richest person has questioned conventional retirement saving. Musk has previously told audiences that people should not be overly concerned about setting aside money for retirement in 10 or 20 years, and he said on one program, "If any of the predictions we have put forward are correct, then saving for retirement will no longer be relevant."

Musk's vision of abundance

Musk has argued that advances in artificial intelligence, energy technology and robotics could drive productivity so far that resources and services become widely available. According to Musk, in such a future every individual could have access to whatever they want, better healthcare than is currently available to most people, elimination of shortages of goods and services, and free access to learning on any topic.

In a separate podcast appearance he sketched an even broader outcome, saying that progress in robotics and space travel could help create a multi-planetary economy and that "money becomes meaningless" and "conventional currency will not matter."

Financial experts urge continued saving

Despite Musk's forecasts, financial professionals caution against abandoning retirement savings. Business Insider spoke with seven specialists in personal finance and artificial intelligence, and all of them told the outlet that people should continue to save for retirement because there is a real possibility that Musk's predictions will not come to pass.

The original exchange on X came in response to a user message asserting that, with the arrival of abundance, many present-day financial worries would likely no longer matter within a few years.