Elon Musk Promises AI Will Make Us Rich Enough to Stop Pretending to Work

KEY POINTS

•Elon Musk predicted in December 2025 that AI will create a 'universal high income' eliminating poverty by making work optional.
•Bill Gates suggested during a February interview that AI could enable a two or three-day workweek by solving major production problems.
•OpenAI CEO Sam Altman proposed in July that AI profits be shared publicly through a 'universal basic wealth' dividend system.

In a 2025 tech soap opera, Elon Musk envisions a world so wealthy thanks to AI and robotics that 'poverty will be non-existent' and work will be as optional as flossing. The Tesla-xAI overlord even called this 'universal high income' future 'kind of heaven' on Joe Rogan's podcast in October, where he promised medical care and goods aplenty. Bill Gates, interviewed by Jimmy Fallon in February, temperately mused that food and transport problems might be 'solved' enough for us lazy humans to enjoy a three-day workweek. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s Sam Altman in July proposed everyone owning a share of AI profits, suggesting a 'universal basic wealth' where AI dividends replace paychecks, but warned a boring payout won’t cut it. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tried to Grumpy Cat the party by saying wealth isn’t just cash but info, which 'only a few had thousands of years ago.' Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and Google's DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis threw in Keynesian hours and 'radical abundance' for good measure, debating if Earthlings will get to vacation with aliens or just figure out how to stay employed when robots do everything. The takeaway? A future after 15-hour workweeks where tech bros decide if you get to sip margaritas or work at all is coming, assuming they don’t blow it on stock bumps and fiery tweets first.