Elon Musk has offered his boldest AI predictions yet, and they arrive wrapped in equal parts optimism and unease. In a 90-minute interview with The Economist released Thursday, the world’s richest person laid out a future reshaped entirely by artificial intelligence. As chief of Tesla and SpaceX, owner of X, and head of xAI, he sits at the center of the race he was describing.
His timeline was the headline claim. Musk said AI may exceed humanity’s collective intelligence in around five years. Soon after that, he argued, there really will not be anything AI cannot do better than humans, apart from being human. Coming from someone building frontier models, the prediction carries weight, though his past timelines have often slipped.
Musk painted a picture of an “age of amazing abundance,” where anyone can have anything they can think of. In his telling, AI-driven productivity would erase scarcity and transform how people live and work. It is a genuinely hopeful vision, and one that conveniently benefits the companies he runs.
Asked who would be in charge once AI surpasses us, Musk reached for an uncomfortable comparison. He likened the coming intelligence gap to the one between humans and chimpanzees, noting it is hard to imagine the chimpanzee staying in charge. That analogy, meant to illustrate the stakes, does little to reassure anyone about humanity’s place.
Musk acknowledged getting “carried away” with politics, a notable admission given his high-profile government role under President Trump and his DOGE cost-cutting effort. The comment reads as mild self-awareness from a figure rarely given to public second-guessing.
His comments on immigration drew the sharpest reaction. When editor Zanny Minton Beddoes asked directly whether he was anti-Muslim, Musk did not answer yes or no. Instead he said he opposed people entering a country with “antithetical views,” adding that he was against rape, murder, and the imposition of laws contrary to Western values. He also repeated his claim that the UK faces a looming “reckoning” over immigration, which Beddoes pushed back on, noting that London is safer than most US cities. Critics called the response an evasion, while Musk insisted he is not racist, pointing to his own status as an immigrant.
The interview itself drew mixed reactions worth noting. Some outlets ran straightforward summaries of his big claims, while others characterized his responses to tougher questions as evasive or combative. Musk has reportedly been avoiding traditional press lately, even canceling a planned CNBC appearance, which makes the sit-down notable regardless of how it went. For readers, the takeaway is less about the man’s mood and more about the scale of what he is predicting, since a five-year path to superintelligence would reshape every economy on earth, Pakistan’s included.
You can see the highlights of the interview here:
