Elon Musk on the future of jobs and AI, 'My prediction is that work will be optional'

1. AI Platforms & Assistants

Elon Musk on the future of jobs and AI, 'My prediction is that work will be optional' Opinion By Lance Ulanoff published 22 November 2025

A dream or a nightmare?

Comments (0) ()

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The automation that comes with AI is certain to affect jobs, but when recently asked about this topic, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, as is his way, went a step further and declared, "My prediction is that work will be optional."

Now, this is a bold statement, though perhaps Musk, who appeared alongside Jensen Huang (who has his own strong opinions on AI and jobs) at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., thought this kind of global stage was the perfect place to make such a wild prediction.

• Amazon Black Friday deals are live: here are our picks!

To be fair, Musk didn't say this AI workforce revolution would happen today or even next year. "Maybe it's 10-20 years, something like that. For me, that's long-term," he explained.

You may like

• Worried about AI taking your job? Don't worry, Sam Altman says some disappearing roles were never ‘real work’ to begin with
• An AI executive's dire warnings about the future are chilling – but his solution is worse than the problem
• Sam Altman predicts AI will cause major job losses in these fields - will you be safe?

As for what work will remain, Musk seemed to describe it as mostly teleoperated: "It'll be like playing sports or a video game." So your job in 2035 might be performed from your couch via joystick.

In Musk's imagined future, there will be some who choose to work, but they'll be like the people who have vegetable gardens. Perhaps it's best if I let Musk explain.

I think at some point, currency becomes irrelevant.

Elon Musk

"In the same way, you can go to the store and buy some vegetables or you can grow vegetables in your backyard...it's much harder to grow vegetables in your backyard, but some people do it because they like growing vegetables. That will be what work is like, optional."

This premise doesn't hold up in any logical sense, but Musk buttresses the argument with a rather magical leap.

Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox

Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

"Now, there will still be constraints on power, like electricity and mass – the fundamental physics elements will still be constraints – but I think at some point, currency becomes irrelevant."

Look, I know we just ended the Penny in the US, but we still need all those other nickels, dimes, and dollars to buy all those vegetables we're not growing in our backyard.

On the one hand, Musk is not wrong that AI is eating into the job market. McKinsey reported that 92 million jobs could be displaced by automation by 2030. Goldman Sachs put the number at 300 million jobs globally, though the timeline is not clear.

You may like

• Worried about AI taking your job? Don't worry, Sam Altman says some disappearing roles were never ‘real work’ to begin with
• An AI executive's dire warnings about the future are chilling – but his solution is worse than the problem
• Sam Altman predicts AI will cause major job losses in these fields - will you be safe?

So what's the problem with Musk's dystopian view? Like him or not, the world's richest man is a change- and taste-maker. He has the ear of at least one President (when they're not fighting) and is revered on his owned and operated platform X (formerly Twitter) by millions.

He is also, arguably, often unable to control impulsive thoughts or think through the ramifications of his words.

I've covered Musk for over a decade (for two years I ran podcast on his daily doings) and this attitude of bold pronouncements often followed by confusion or consternation has been pretty much on brand for him for over a decade.

A change maker but what's the agenda?

Some of what Musk promises or says comes true. He willed Tesla into becoming a global EV brand and applied the same kind of drive to making SpaceX the shuttle for both the International Space Station and thousands of Starlink satellites. He talked himself into owning Twitter and then refashioned it in his own unpredictable image.

Musk has often said he cares most about the Internet, energy, and becoming a multiplanetary species (he once said it to me), but it's often hard to know what he stands for. He tweeted in 2020, "I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house," and yet he is not only the richest man in the world, but does seem quite concerned with monetary wealth, having just negotiated one of the largest CEO pay packages in history.

It's easy, I think, for the world's richest man to tell people, many who are struggling paycheck to paycheck, that money won't matter and work will be optional because AI and robots will do everything for us. Musk says it'll take a lot of work, but he has never offered any plans for helping regular people through that work to arrive at this utopia or dystopia.

Well, no plan beyond AI and humanoid robotics, which he said "will actually eliminate poverty." How this happens is unclear, and I doubt Musk has a plan for making it so.

Instead, he just keeps building rockets to take I don't know who to an uninhabitable Mars, and keeps building tin car trucks that most consumers could never afford, let alone want. He aligns himself with a US administration that cosies up to the wealthiest nations while people in small towns hold down two or more jobs to pay for next week's Thanksgiving dinner.

Elon Musk whistles “Fly Me To The Moon” 2012 - YouTube Watch On

I think back to the man I met more than a dozen years ago. I thought he was brilliant, a little shy, and probably overworked. Even back then, he was running Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity. He told me how he used email to manage it all and keep it all straight.

It was a good talk, and I felt comfortable asking him about his hobbies or skills outside of business. He had none but shared that he could whistle. So I asked him to whistle something, and he chose, "Fly me to the moon."

It was a sweet and fairly innocent moment. What, I wonder, would Musk whistle today? Maybe this?

Today's best Microsoft Surface Laptop deals No price informationCheck Amazon SingaporeWe check over 250 million products every day for the best prices

Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

TOPICS AI Lance UlanoffSocial Links NavigationEditor At Large

A 38-year industry veteran and award-winning journalist, Lance has covered technology since PCs were the size of suitcases and “on line” meant “waiting.” He’s a former Lifewire Editor-in-Chief, Mashable Editor-in-Chief, and, before that, Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for Ziff Davis, Inc. He also wrote a popular, weekly tech column for Medium called The Upgrade.

Lance Ulanoff makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Live with Kelly and Mark, the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, and the BBC. 

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

Logout Read more Worried about AI taking your job? Don't worry, Sam Altman says some disappearing roles were never ‘real work’ to begin with    An AI executive's dire warnings about the future are chilling – but his solution is worse than the problem    Sam Altman predicts AI will cause major job losses in these fields - will you be safe?    Lucky us - Zoom CEO says AI will shorten our working week, so what will we do with all our new free time?    If the calculator wasn’t the end of learning, AI won’t be the end of work    'A kid born in 2025 is unlikely to ever be as smart as artificial intelligence': Sam Altman thinks it's OK for AI to be smarter than us all - and I am sure we will be totally, totally fine    Latest in AI Platforms & Assistants Comet AI browser lands on Android    6 prompts to get the most out of Gemini 3, Google's answer to ChatGPT    You can now ask the Gemini app if an image was made by AI    Should you use Google AI Mode or is boring old Search better?    This AI app lets you chat with the dead – and not everyone is okay with it    ChatGPT enters the group chat globally    Latest in Opinion Elon Musk on the future of jobs and AI, 'My prediction is that work will be optional'    A glimpse into the next decade of connectivity: 4 lessons from Yotta 2025    Protecting productivity: the imperative of cybersecurity in manufacturing    Human risk: don’t blame the victim, fix the system    What is data governance and why is it crucial for successful AI projects?    Bridging the real digital gap in the public sector    LATEST ARTICLES

1. 1Elon Musk on the future of jobs and AI, 'My prediction is that work will be optional'
2. 2Black Friday scams are everywhere now – here are the 5 best ways to stay safe
3. 3WhatsApp security flaw lets experts scrape 3.5 billion user numbers - here's what we know, and how to stay safe
4. 4Is Nvidia opening up its NVLink doors even further? New partnership with AMD will see greater integration across many kinds of chips
5. 5Comet AI browser lands on Android