1. What you'll lose3/5

   Nothing AI won't do better, 'apart from being human'.

2. Condescension2/5

   'Anyone can have anything they can think of.'

3. Tone-deafness3/5

   Abundance, still undefined a year later, per TechCrunch.

4. Doom3/5

   AI exceeding the sum of human intelligence in about five years.

5. Hypocrisy0/5

   None.

Full time11 pitchforksof a possible 25

The occasion

Interview with The Economist's editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes (exact day not confirmed), July 2026.

Context

In an interview with The Economist's editor-in-chief in summer 2026, Musk said AI would do everything better than humans except being human, and described a benign outcome of 'amazing abundance'. Futurism calls it a 'now infamous interview'; the interview page on economist.com was not readable (HTTP 403), so the words are as quoted by Futurism, and TechCrunch separately quotes 'anyone can have anything they can think of' from the same July interview.

Crowd reaction

Critical commentary

TechCrunch wrote that 'practical details are basically nonexistent' and that 'some of these ideas sound like the kind of proclamations uttered after a hearty bong rip in freshman housing'. Futurism called it a 'now infamous interview' and the abundance pitch 'delusional optimism about AI'.

See the reaction

• Futurism: Elon Musk, Who is Hoarding Nearly a Trillion Dollars, Says Saving Money Is "Pointless"
• TechCrunch: One year later, Tesla and Musk still don't have a good definition of 'abundance'
• Where the exact words are printed