Elon Musk predicts: AI will solve 38 trillion dollars of U.S. debt within 3 years, and humans will no longer need to work in 20 years.

Musk revealed in a podcast with Indian entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath on Sunday that the only way the U.S. can get out of its $38.34 trillion debt woes is a productivity revolution powered by AI and robots. He predicts that within 3 years commodity output will exceed the rate of inflation, and within 20 years mankind will enter the era of “universal high income”. (Synopsis: Musk became the first billionaire worth more than $500 billion!) Tesla, SpaceX and xAI three-engine resonance) (background supplement: Tesla Optimus robot “kung fu fight” like a real person awakening!) Musk: V3 version is very different) Elon Musk, the world's richest man, threw out a startling statement in a podcast conversation with Indian venture capitalist Nikhil Kamath on Sunday: The only way America can get out of its $38.34 trillion debt woes is a productivity revolution powered by AI and robots. He predicts that within 3 years the output of goods and services will exceed the rate of inflation, within 20 years work will become “optional”, and mankind will enter the era of “universal high income”. However, Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, the father of AI, warned that most of the wealth would go to the top few, causing mass unemployment. During the hours-long conversation, Musk unabashedly expressed optimism about AI and robotics. He believes that the fiscal crisis facing the US government is not unsolvable, and the key is whether it can seize the productivity jump brought about by this wave of technological revolution, Musk stressed in the podcast: This is almost the only solution to the US debt crisis, but it is likely to lead to significant deflation. According to the U.S. Treasury, as of November 26, 2025, the U.S. national debt has reached $38.34 trillion, more than double what it was a decade ago. Interest payments on debt alone exceed $1 trillion a year, even more than the annual U.S. defense budget. This snowball of debt has worried many economists, but Musk sees a turnaround from technology. Debt Crisis and AI Solutions America's fiscal woes didn't happen overnight. Over the past decade, the federal government has continued to operate at a deficit, issuing debt to finance massive social welfare, defense spending, and infrastructure investment. The massive fiscal stimulus during the pandemic in 2020 accelerated the expansion of debt. Musk believes that traditional fiscal austerity or tax increases cannot fundamentally solve the problem, and the only way out is to significantly increase productivity through AI and robotics, so that economic output can grow faster than debt accumulates. He said in the podcast: AI is not yet enough to boost productivity enough to allow economic output to outpace inflation, but that is about to change. In three years or less, my judgment is that the output of goods and services will exceed the rate of inflation. This means that when AI and robots are applied on a large scale in manufacturing, services and knowledge industries, production costs will fall sharply, and the supply of goods and services will far exceed demand, creating a “deflationary effect”. At that point, even if the debt is large, the increase in real purchasing power will make the debt burden relatively easy: Musk's utopian vision Musk's vision for AI and robotics goes far beyond solving the debt crisis. He depicts an era of “high income for all” in which human beings can live a prosperous life without having to work, with three main keys: 1. Musk said in the podcast that advances in AI and robotics will bring humans into a phase where “work becomes optional,” which could happen over the next two decades. He described the result as “Universal High Income,” a world of extreme productivity and abundant goods and services, where people can meet their basic needs without having to work. “In the next 10 to 20 years, maybe even just 10 or 15 years, work will become optional, like a hobby,” he said. 2. Optimus robots: the key to ending poverty Musk has high hopes for his Optimus humanoid robot. At a Tesla shareholder event last month, the CEO said the Optimus robot could eliminate poverty and the need for human labor. There is a lot of talk about eradicating poverty and giving everyone access to excellent health care. In fact, there is only one way to do it, and that is the Optimus robot. Optimus is a humanoid robot project developed by Tesla since 2021, with the goal of creating a general-purpose robot that can perform a variety of human tasks. Musk predicts that the Optimus will sell for around $20,000 and cost just $10,000 to produce. If Tesla can capture 10% of the global market of 10-20 billion humanoid robots, it will create at least $1 trillion in profits per year. 3. Money will lose its meaning Musk also said at the USS Investment Forum last month that money will “lose its meaning” in the future world of AI. “There will still be power and material restrictions,” he said. But I think that at some stage, the currency will become irrelevant. This argument coincides with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's concept of “Universal Basic Compute.” Altman believes that in the future, everyone should be allocated a share of AI computing power (such as GPT-7), which can be freely used, traded, rented or donated, and this computing power may be more valuable than money itself. Heaven or hell? However, not all tech leaders and economists share Musk's utopian vision. In fact, the impact of AI on employment and wealth distribution is hotly debated. Optimists: Technology creates new opportunities In addition to Musk, optimists in the tech industry believe that AI will create new jobs and economic models. Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the BBC in November that AI has “the potential for extraordinary benefits” but also “social shocks.” “It will create new opportunities,” he said. It will evolve and transform certain jobs that people need to adapt. At the same time, it also affects some jobs, so as a society, we need to have a discussion. Investor Vinod Khosla said in September that AI will eventually do 80 percent of 80 percent of jobs, a shift that will diminish the value of human labor and give people more free time. To avoid a sharp rise in inequality, Khosla said the government needs to implement a universal basic income (UBI). Pessimists: Concentration of wealth, mass unemployment In stark contrast to the optimists, Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as the “father of AI,” issued a stern warning. In an interview with the Financial Times in September, he said that AI would bring “huge increases in profits,” but that most of the wealth would go to the top few. It will make a small number of people richer, and the majority poorer. Hinton noted that AI is likely to cause “mass unemployment.” The problem, he stressed, is not the technology itself, but the “capitalist system” that determines who can access the value created by AI. Under the current system, AI technology is available.