Money exists as the reward for effort. Elon Musk thinks it's headed toward obsolescence.
During a recent conversation with Indian entrepreneur and investor Nikhil Kamath on the "People by WTF" podcast, the Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX CEO offered a vision of the future that he treats less like speculation and more like guaranteed trajectory. As artificial intelligence and robotics advance, Musk believes society will move past jobs, beyond income debates, and into something fundamentally different.
Work becomes optional. Not reduced, not reimagined. Optional.
"My prediction is, in less than 20 years, working will be optional," Musk said. He didn't hedge. "Working at all will be optional."
This wasn't pitched as some Silicon Valley utopia fantasy. Musk tied it directly to raw productivity. As machines handle more output, humans simply aren't needed to keep the system running. People could still work if they wanted to, but the necessity evaporates.
"It'll be optional, in that way, is my prediction," he said.
The conversation naturally shifted to income, where Musk has previously argued that universal basic income misses the mark. On Kamath's podcast, he doubled down on the alternative he's championed before.
"Yeah. I think it will be Universal High Income," Musk said.
His logic is straightforward. When productivity hits a certain threshold, scarcity fades away. At that point, debates about wages and employment become meaningless because production is no longer the constraint.
Musk painted a picture of a future where AI and robotics progress far enough that material limitations essentially vanish. "Working will be optional, and people will have any goods and services that they want," he said. Then came the kicker: "If you can think of it, you can have it."
That premise sets up the real bombshell. If people can access whatever they want without exchanging labor for it, money loses its fundamental function.
"I think, long term… I think money disappears as a concept, honestly," Musk said.
He explained that money serves today as an organizational tool. "In a future where anyone can have anything, I think you no longer need money as a database for labour allocation," he said.
The condition is clear. "If AI and robotics are big enough to satisfy all human needs, then money is no longer… Its relevance declines dramatically," Musk said. "I'm not sure we will have it."
Musk acknowledged this trajectory leads into unknown territory. He mentioned the technological singularity concept, where predicting outcomes becomes nearly impossible. "It doesn't mean that something bad happens," he said. "It just means you don't know what happens."
Musk has never operated like a typical billionaire. He's slept on factory floors, showered at the YMCA, and maintained a minimalist lifestyle while running companies worth hundreds of billions. When someone who treats money as a tool rather than a status symbol talks about a future where currency fades away, it carries weight. It sounds less like speculation and more like insight into how he already thinks.
For anyone watching the technology landscape, that framing matters. Musk isn't suggesting that value disappears. He's arguing that value shifts—away from labor and toward systems that eliminate the need for it entirely. In that future, the biggest opportunities aren't built around jobs, salaries, or traditional income models, but around technologies that scale without humans involved.
The endgame, as he describes it, is abundance. And the race is about who builds the infrastructure to deliver it first.