Most people don’t like billionaire Elon Musk. According to the latest polling, 53% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the billionaire, while just 39% hold a favorable view. The Economist pointed out this fact in an absolutely wild sit-down interview last week that went viral. Musk appeared defensive and desperate to prove people actually love him, pointing to his large follower count on X, the social media site he controls. The hate for Musk probably has something to do with his destruction of USAID, his steady stream of racist tweets, and his refusal to accept responsibility for the people who died as a result of his actions in government. And who can forget those two Nazi-style salutes he gave in public? The hate is also likely related to his attitude about charity. Musk has argued that his private businesses are a form of charitable giving and that billionaires like himself shouldn’t bother giving money away. Why does Musk not believe in charity? Recently, he’s started to insist that it’s because people won’t actually need money in the future.
“Money won’t matter in 2036,” Musk insisted in an interview with the editor-in-chief of the Economist, Zanny Minton Beddoes. Beddoes laughed off Musk’s assertion, pointing out that SpaceX investors probably believe that money will still matter in ten years. But Musk claims that AI will exceed human intelligence in five years and humans will no longer be in charge of the world by 2036. And at that point, he claims a techno-utopian society will emerge where no one will need money because robots will do all the labor and produce a world of abundance.
