Elon Musk has floated one of his most radical economic predictions yet: in a future where artificial intelligence and robots handle most production, traditional currencies like the dollar and the euro could lose their function — and personal fortunes could lose their current meaning along with them.

The core of the scenario is abundance. If the goods people need can be produced in vast quantities with minimal effort, defining wealth in terms of money becomes increasingly difficult, Musk argues.

Wealth redefined in physical terms

In the future Musk envisions, even mansions could be described in terms of energy and mass. He appears to use watts as a measure of power and tonnage as an indicator tied to mass — in other words, the value of a good or resource might be expressed not in dollars, but by the energy and physical magnitude it corresponds to.

Space adds another layer to the prediction. Musk stresses that when humanity settles on other planets, Earth-bound economic logic will no longer apply. At that point, he says, the fundamental rules of the universe — the laws of physics — become the key benchmarks for the economic order as well.

An age of automation-driven abundance

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Underpinning the forecast is an unshakable faith in machine productivity. As AI and robots surpass human labor in speed and efficiency, the production of goods and services could reach an entirely new level. And as production becomes effortless, today's working order will inevitably need to be redefined.

The world Musk paints offers a comfortable future: people could move beyond livelihood as their first priority and pursue different paths. Some might return to the land and grow their own produce, while others might turn to art or dive into subjects that spark their curiosity. As machines shoulder production, humanity's view of labor, leisure and needs could evolve radically.

Even the world's richest fortune isn't spared

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Notably, the prediction touches Musk's own wealth — he is the world's richest person. The entrepreneur suggests that a heavy tax burden could erode his fortune, and that in a world where money loses value, the inheritance left to his grandchildren would not carry the same meaning it does today. After all, in a world where everyone's needs can be met, billions of dollars would have long since lost their current privilege.