• Elon Musk says "money becomes irrelevant" if he's right about what the future holds.
• The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said AI and robots will be better than humans at everything.
• The world's richest man said his fortune could be virtually gone within a few generations.

Elon Musk says money could be meaningless one day, and the vast majority of his wealth will likely be gone within a few generations.

The world's richest person predicted that advances in robotics and space travel will create a multiplanetary economy, at which point "money becomes irrelevant" and "conventional currency will not matter."

Value will be measured in mass and power or energy, he continued. "So that's my guess," he said, adding that it seemed a "pretty obvious" outcome to him.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO shared his vision of a post-money future and his outlook on his personal fortune with his biographer, Walter Isaacson, on "The Builders" podcast. The interview was taped in early August and released on Tuesday.

Musk recommended earlier this year that people stop saving for retirement in 10 or 20 years, as he expects AI and other technologies to supercharge productivity and usher in an age of abundance where people can have "whatever stuff they want."

He made a similar argument to Isaacson, saying "there won't be anything that humans can do that the AI and the robots can't do better." People will likely turn to hobbies like growing their own fruits and vegetables, or making art, to find purpose in life, he said.

Musk's plans for his own money

Musk, who briefly became a trillionaire after SpaceX went public in June, topped the Bloomberg Billionaire Index at Monday's close with an estimated $920 billion net worth.

He defended his personal wealth on the podcast, saying that it mostly reflects his ownership of SpaceX and Tesla, and he needs large stakes in both companies to retain voting power and remain in charge.

His fortune is "going to be taxed quite heavily," Musk said, adding that there isn't "some magical way to avoid taxes" because "if there were, I would know about it."

Musk said his wealth will "get whittled down and a few generations from now — if money still matters, which I don't think it will — my descendants would have a tiny fraction of what I have."

He also outlined what he hopes his foundation will spend his fortune on after he's gone: "Continue the goals. Make life multi-planetary, extend consciousness to the stars, improve sustainable energy on Earth."

Notably, Musk pledged on Monday to gift a share of SpaceX to every child in the US next year, a contribution worth over $10 billion today.

His announcement has won praise from President Donald Trump, who hailed Musk's "incredible generosity" and labeled him a "legendary friend" in an X post.

Musk teased a charitable pledge in late July after Nobel economist Daron Acemoglu publicly challenged him over his prediction of a post-money future.

"If money won't matter in 2036, why don't you pledge to donate your current wealth of approximately $1 trillion to charity no later than 2036," Acemoglu wrote on X.

"I am actually going to do something along these lines!" Musk responded.

Two hundred years ago, the invention of Braille allowed blind people to read and write. By the 1930s, recorded sound made "talking books" possible. Developments in text-to-speech technology in the 1980s made reading more accessible and widespread. Then came personal computers, screen readers, smartphones, cameras, GPS, voice assistants, and myriad other technological advancements that gave blind people more independence.

Now a pair of sunglasses can read your mail, describe the person in front of you, tell you what is on a restaurant menu, and help you find your way home. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is using artificial intelligence to turn glasses into a hands-free companion. For any person, this technology is impressive. For the approximately 700,000 Americans who are blind, it is potentially life-changing.

In June, Meta announced that every single blind veteran in the United States could receive its AI glasses free of charge. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.), approximately 130,000 American veterans are legally blind, and over 1 million veterans have vision impairment that makes performing daily activities difficult. Don Overton, a blind veteran and former executive director of the Blinded Veterans Association, told Meta that he had "lost [his] independence" after losing his eyesight in a bunker explosion. "The moment I put on my Ray-Ban Meta glasses," he said, "I got my independence back."

The V.A. has a history of failing to fully support blind veterans. In 2022, the V.A.'s Office of Inspector General found that claims processors were instructed to contact visually impaired veterans by telephone, but 87 percent of claims showed no evidence of these calls ever happening. A 2022 investigation by the Senate's Special Committee on Aging found that "roughly 90 percent" of V.A. websites were not compliant with federal accessibility requirements. "We feel we've been abandoned by the agency that is tasked with providing our care and services for us," Overton told The Washington Post in 2022.

Meta's AI glasses have come under fire due to their privacy risks. The company was sued in March after Swedish publications Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten reportedly found that Meta's contractors in Kenya were accessing videos by users of their AI glasses. "We see everything, from living rooms to naked bodies," one worker noted.

Users should be aware of those risks. Still, for blind veterans, companies such as Meta have stepped up to fill a gap that the government has failed to address.

The post Meta Is Gifting AI Glasses to Blind Veterans: 'I Got My Independence Back' appeared first on Reason Magazine.

• Elon Musk says he'll give a SpaceX share to every child in the US next year.
• That would be a $10.5 billion gift based on SpaceX's stock price and roughly 72 million recipients.
• Musk said this would be the "first of many" SpaceX share giveaways but didn't offer further details.

Elon Musk says he'll give every child in the US a piece of his space company, a gift worth around $10.5 billion today.

"Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America," Musk wrote in an early Monday post on X. "This will be the first of many."

There are roughly 72 million children in the US based on 2025 census data, and SpaceX stock closed at $146 on Friday. If Musk donated 72 million shares right now they would be worth around $10.5 billion.

Musk didn't provide any further details on how the giveaway would work, such as eligibility criteria or specific timing, or whether the shares will be transferred to Trump Accounts.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is the world's richest person, with an estimated net worth of $904 billion as of Friday's close, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

SpaceX — the company behind Falcon rockets, Starship launch vehicles, Starlink satellites, the AI chatbot Grok, and X — went public this summer and has a market capitalization of about $2 trillion.

Excluding restricted shares and options, Musk owns 4.77 billion SpaceX shares for about a 36% stake, worth just under $700 billion at Friday's close. The rest of his fortune largely comprises his stakes in his other companies, including Tesla, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.

Donating 72 million shares would reduce Musk's number of SpaceX shares by 1.5%. If, as indicated in his X post, he follows that up with further giveaways, his stake could shrink significantly.

Musk's pledge is part of a broader trend of gifting shares to America's children, aimed at ensuring they all own a piece of the stock market and reap its gains over time, and benefit from a lifetime of compounding wealth.

The Trump administration launched Trump Accounts — tax-advantaged investment accounts — for eligible children this summer, with those born between 2025 and 2028 receiving a $1,000 federal seed deposit. Numerous companies have agreed to contribute to them as well.

Michael and Susan Dell contributed $250 to 25 million American children's Trump Accounts earlier this month, a gift totaling $6.25 billion that was allocated first to those in the lowest-income ZIP codes.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and her husband pledged in July to give shares of SpaceX to more than 2 million children.

Musk shared his SpaceX gift idea after Anthropic pledged to commit 5% of its shares to a public benefit fund.

"I recommend giving shares directly to the public," he replied on X. "This is what I will be doing."

Another X user described Anthropic and Musk's pledges as "the beginning of universal basic income." Musk corrected him, writing *universal high income."

Musk has predicted that advances in AI, robotics, and other technologies will usher in an age of abundance in which everyone can have "whatever stuff they want."

He's recommended people stop saving for retirement in 10 or 20 years as their nest eggs will be "irrelevant," and has proposed government checks for all as the best response to job losses from AI.

Correction: October 19, 2026 — An earlier version of this story incorrectly described SpaceX as a private company. It went public in June 2026.

• Anthropic is pledging billions worth of shares to a "public benefit fund."
• That sounds great — but not everyone is a fan.
• Elon Musk is among those who say the money should go directly to Americans.

Anthropic's announcement that it will commit at least 5% of its shares to a "public benefit fund" is drawing a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. Many questions about how the fund would work remain unanswered, but the company said it would create a separate corporation with the shares to make donations.

Here's what people are saying.

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceXAI

Musk, whose SpaceXAI is a competitor of Anthropic, made some news about his own plans in an X post reacting to Anthropic's statement.

"I recommend giving the shares directly to the public," he wrote. "This is what I will be doing."

Palmer Luckey, Anduril cofounder

The Anduril Industries cofounder expressed concern about what Anthropic might fund.

"The problem is that their definition of 'public good' is helping everyone else, not the American public," he wrote on X.

"If they would commit to helping America and Americans, that would be one thing, but this reeks of USAID 2.0, just another way to funnel billions out of our own economy."

Andrew Curran, AI analyst

The prominent AI analyst zeroed in on a line in Anthropic's statement in which it said it might explore "direct distributions to specific populations." Curran wrote on X.

"It sounds to me like they are planning their own form of self-directed global UBI," he wrote referring to universal basic income, which some have said will be necessary if AI drastically reduces employment.

"About half of Anth employees are also donating shares into this fund," Curran added. "They foresee a transformative future."

Brad Gerstner, CEO of Altimeter Capital

Gerstner praised Anthropic for what he called its "philanthropic commitments," calling it "an extraordinary gift" — but he also sounded a note of caution about "foundation wealth concentration."

Like Musk, he wrote, "I hope a meaningful portion of AI's wealth is a direct dividend."

Sam Hogan Heutmaker, CEO of Inference

The CEO drew a comparison between Anthropic's plan to create a charity and OpenAI, which began as a nonprofit before going commercial.

"This will come to be known as 'the reverse OpenAI'" he wrote on X. "start as C corp, raise lots of money > once successful, start 'independent' non profit > start concentrating value into this new entity, which you and your homies control."

"It's genius," he added.

Gary Marcus, professor at NYU

Marcus cast the announcement as a PR gambit.

"Anthropic is playing games here," he wrote on X. "Trying to curry public favor while still holding control and resisting disclosure is annoying. And reeks of desperation."

Patrick Moorhead, CEO of Moor Insights and Strategy

Moorhead was among those raising questions about whether Anthropic would have too much control over where the funds go.

"If it's dedicated entirely the 'public benefit' why don't they just give it to the public and citizens where they can directly benefit? Seems like the public would know what to do with the money better than bureaucratic institutions," he wrote on X.

David Sacks

Venture capitalist and the Trump administration's former AI czar, David Sacks, responded to a post from Anthropic cofounder Jack Clark, who said the public benefit pledge would mean around 20% of Anthropic's equity would be "dedicated to the public good."

"You've put 20% of your equity in an LLC. Whether it serves the public good remains to be seen," wrote Sacks on X.

Sacks has previously been a fierce critic of Anthropic, attacking the company's proposal that the world's top AI labs should implement a global pause on the technology and accusing Anthropic of attempting to "kneecap" open-source rivals.

Travis Kalanick

"Behold, the EA infinite money glitch…" Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick wrote, quote-tweeting Anthropic's blog post.

EA refers to effective altruism, a philosophy popular in some corners of Silicon Valley (and unpopular in others) that holds that people should use their money and careers to maximize long-term benefit to humanity.

Several of Anthropic's cofounders and early investors have ties to effective altruism, although the company and its top executives, Dario and Daniela Amodei, have distanced themselves from the movement.

Kevin Roose

Kevin Roose, a former New York Times tech columnist and the author of "The AGI Chronicles," wrote on X that Anthropic's pledge could be the "largest commitment of philanthropic capital ever made."

Roose estimated that the share pledge could be worth $200 billion if Anthropic goes public at a $1 trillion valuation.

"By my count, if Anthropic and OpenAI each go public at $1 trillion (again, probably conservative), that's roughly $460 billion, or 5 Gates Foundations, earmarked for philanthropy-shaped things," he said.

Just weeks before its scheduled November IPO, Anthropic is facing growing attention over the potential dangers of its technology. The resignation of former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon on September 8, who wrote on X that AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade,” preceded the company’s threat report on September 10. According […]

The post AI’s apparent danger is its best selling point appeared first on Asia Times.

Two American charities recently announced a new fund to fight forest fires. They want to raise US$100 million to help countries find fires faster and put them out sooner. But the fund, announced at the UN General Assembly, is limited to South America, home to the Amazon rainforest. Southeast Asia is left out, and so […]

The post Indonesia should have a seat at new forest firefighting fund appeared first on Asia Times.