At a forum he once accused of exercising unaccountable global influence, Musk laid out an expansive vision of a world powered by intelligent machines, saying robotics could unlock massive economic growth while filling gaps left by declining birth rates and shrinking workforces
Elon Musk, who for years has derided the World Economic Forum as a symbol of elite overreach, arrived in Davos on Thursday and used his first appearance at the annual gathering to make a sweeping prediction about the future of humanity.
Robots, he said, will eventually outnumber people. Musk’s presence at the Swiss alpine resort was itself a surprise.
He has repeatedly criticized the forum, which this week has drawn heads of state, corporate leaders and policymakers, including President Trump, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
In 2023, Musk described Davos as “increasingly becoming an unelected world government that the people never asked for and don’t want.”
Yet on Thursday, seated opposite Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock and a co-chair of the forum, Musk laid out a vision of an economy transformed by artificial intelligence and robotics. He framed the technologies not as threats to jobs or social order, but as the only realistic path to lifting living standards across the globe.
Asked about the broader goals of his companies, including the electric carmaker Tesla and the aerospace firm SpaceX, Musk said Tesla’s mission had evolved beyond clean energy. It now includes what he called “sustainable abundance,” a concept he tied directly to the development of intelligent machines.
Tesla is building a humanoid robot known as Optimus, alongside its efforts to deploy fully autonomous robotaxis.
“With robotics and AI, this is really the path to abundance for all,” Musk said during the interview. “People often talk about solving global poverty — how do we give everyone a very high standard of living? The only way to do this is AI and robotics.”
He predicted that robots would become commonplace in daily life and across industries, triggering what he described as “an explosion in the global economy.”
In one of his most striking forecasts, he said the sheer number of machines would surpass the human population.
“My prediction is there will be more robots than people,” Musk said.
He argued that humanoid robots could play a critical role in caring for aging populations, particularly in countries where birth rates are falling and there are fewer young workers to support older citizens.
In that sense, he presented robotics not only as an economic tool but also as a response to demographic decline.
When Fink pressed him on timelines, Musk said Tesla’s Optimus robots were already performing “simple tasks in the factory.” Progress, he suggested, would be rapid.
“By the end of this year, I think they will be doing more complex tasks, and probably by the end of next year, I think we’d be selling humanoid robots to the public,” he said. “That’s when we are confident it’ll have very high reliability — you can basically ask it to do anything you like.”
Industry analysts say the market for humanoid robotics is still small, currently valued at between $2 billion and $3 billion, according to estimates from Barclays.
But they also project dramatic growth. The bank expects the sector to expand to at least $40 billion by 2035, and possibly as much as $200 billion, as AI-powered robots move into labor-intensive fields such as manufacturing.
Musk’s appearance in Davos also underscored his complex relationship with politics and power.
Last year, he led the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, a role that placed him squarely within the federal government he has often criticized.
He remains the world’s richest person, with a net worth estimated at $677 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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