Elon Musk has entered a wealth bracket that no individual in history has previously occupied. Following SpaceX’s initial public offering on June 12, Musk’s net worth is estimated to exceed $1.1 trillion, according to Reuters calculations based on company filings and Forbes estimates. SpaceX is now the single largest contributor to his fortune, with his stake in the company worth approximately $866 billion. The second richest person in the world, by comparison, has a net worth hovering around $300 billion.
But while investors, analysts and commentators were still calculating the scale of that fortune, a video clip of Musk began circulating widely online. In it, the newly minted trillionaire appeared to suggest that money itself may one day cease to matter.
The clip is from a conversation between Musk and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis at the 2026 Abundance Summit. Musk talks about a future in which artificial intelligence and robots become so productive that conventional ideas of work, income and money are fundamentally altered.
“We’re going to have universal high income. We’ll basically just issue money to people,” Musk said. He argued that AI and robots could eventually produce goods and services at such a scale that economies would operate very differently from today. “AI and robots are going to make so much stuff and provide so many services that they’ll run out of things to do for humans.”
Then came the line now spreading across social media: “Money will stop being relevant at some point in the future.”
Diamandis laughed and pointed out the irony directly. “So just as you’re becoming a multi-trillionaire, money starts to have less value?” Musk replied, “Yeah, pretty much.”
Musk’s argument is built around the concept of abundance. If AI drives the cost of production down dramatically, societies could move toward what he calls Universal High Income (UHI), a system where people receive enough to enjoy a high standard of living rather than simply cover basic needs. In this scenario, things that are expensive today, including healthcare, housing, food and services, could become accessible to nearly everyone. He has connected this vision to Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus and to the broader trajectory of AI development.
As for what would replace money as the organising principle of the economy, Musk offered an answer that is more physics than finance. He suggested advanced AI systems would not optimise for human currency at all. “AI won’t use human currency. It will care about power and mass: wattage and tonnage.” The implication is that the future economy would be shaped less by who holds cash and more by who controls electricity, computing infrastructure and raw materials.