SpaceX founder Elon Musk has clashed with a journalist in a fiery interview in which he doubled down on his claim the UK will slide into civil war in 20 years.The world’s first trillionaire also warned AI would surpass human intelligence in five years and robots in the workplace would make money meaningless in 10 years.In his first extended interview since SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO, Mr Musk slammed the media and claimed the UK was barrelling towards a “reckoning”. He also hit back at suggestions he supported “far-right, fringe” political parties.“No, I support the normal people. What do you call the far right, falsely?” he asked The Economist’s Zanny Minton Beddoes in a podcast interview released this morning.“You think [it] is the normal person,” Ms Beddoes responded.“Yes!” Mr Musk said, adding, “It’s just normal people and here are the principles, and tell me which of these is terrible: that we should have secure borders, that we should have safe cities, that we should have sensible spending. Which of those three are far-right, fringe?”He then unleashed on Ms Beddoes.“And I would like to admonish you and the media for the absurd characterisation of the far right. It is false, and misleading, and nonsense.”He then turned to the camera crew and said: “Please keep this part in... Don’t cut this part.”Ms Beddoes pushed back, saying: “You have - what is it? - close to 250 million followers on X. You say things like, ‘civil war in Britain is inevitable, just a question of when’.”“On the current trends, yeah,” Mr Musk hit back.“When were you last in the UK?” Ms Beddoes responded.Mr Musk said it had been “a few years” since he had visited.“Exactly, so I live there. I live there the whole time. That is nonsense,” she responded before being told by the tech billionaire she lived “in a cloistered existence”.“No, I don’t, actually... London is a much safer city than any city in the United States. Violent crime in the UK is not where you think it is. In fact, it’s coming down. You have painted - and because you have so many followers, so many Americans believe it - a kind of view that Europe and the UK are kind of overrun with terrifying Muslim immigrants. There’s rape on every corner. There’s some civilisational destruction,” Ms Beddoes said.Mr Musk claimed he never said those things and said: “If you have a large and growing, rapidly growing group of people whose beliefs are antithetical to Western beliefs, at some point there will be a reckoning. “They will try to implement their views and those who oppose it will oppose it and that’s what you call civil war. And obviously, this is the trend.”Ms Beddoes then agreed to Mr Musk’s invititation to tour the UK with him. Mr Musk then said civil war in the UK would break out by 2046.“I would say civil war in Britain is probably 20 years away and the AI robot singularity is 10 years away,” he said.The two also clashed when Ms Beddoes told Mr Musk that people “loathe” him.“Maybe people do loathe me, but I don’t care. The fact that, as you pointed out, a quarter of a billion people follow me [on X], is that more people actually like me than don’t and I think a lot more people hate you, and the media, than you realise. Do you realise the media is despised?”He also claimed AI would exceed human intelligence in five years and that robots will be able to provide goods and service in such abundance there will no longer be a need for cash by 2036.“There really won’t be anything AI won’t be able to do better than humans, apart from being human, perhaps,” he said.“The future is going to be very, very different from the past and there is no analogy or metaphor that illustrates the magnitude of change we’re going to experience here.”The predictions didn’t stop there. Mr Musk said the issue of inflation would go away thanks to robots being able to produce essential products for humans on masse and appeared to advocate for a universal income by suggesting the US Treasury cuts cheques for people.“Inflation is basically the ratio of money to good and services. If the goods and services output increases dramatically, to, like, 1000 per cent, you can literally print - or change the database, because we wouldn’t be printing money - to make the creation of that money less than the rate goods and services increase. You’ll have deflation,” he said.It comes as Mr Musk’s had almost AUD $1 trillion shaved off his net worth as SpaceX comes under pressure on multiple fronts after its blockbuster IPO.Shares in the aerospace and technology company founded by Musk tumbled more than 5 per cent to $124 during a trading session on Friday, July 17.The company has now lost roughly US $700 billion ($1 trillion) in market cap since the share price fell 45 per cent from the June high of almost $226.And Musk, whose fortune consists mostly of equity in SpaceX and Tesla, has suffered a US $600 billion ($859 billion) hit to his net worth.Just a month ago, shares in SpaceX were snapped up during their initial offering at $135.The company offered only a small portion of its total outstanding shares to the public - roughly 5 per cent - and surged when public demand collided with limited supply, making Musk the world’s first-ever trillionaire as his net worth surged to US $1.4 trillion.He has since lost trillionaire status, but remains by far the richest person on earth, with his fortune hovering at USD$800 billion or $1.1 trillion in Australian dollars.Read related topics:Elon MuskImmigration