Surely this is a hallucination, I thought to myself. Those outlandish claims! But then I checked the date, and 1 April was nowhere near.
A sampling: “Work is going to be optional. Money won’t really matter. People will be living in an “age of amazing abundance” just a decade or so from now. Anyone can have anything they can think of.”
This was not Tony Carnie speaking in this week’s Daily Maverick’s Earth newsletter. Nope, just @Tony_Carnie quoting from a 20 July 2026 interview with soon-to-be spacefarer Elon Musk, talking with Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economist’s editor-in-chief. Watch it here.
I’m all for the revolution - tomorrow would be good - but Tony summed it up right, calling Musk the exalted citizen of Cloud Cuckoo Land.
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Yes, unbelievable but I wouldn’t bet against Elon…..
Well - of course one doesn’t “bet against” someone who would be prepared to see the lives sacrificed of all those considered to represent ‘the great unwashed’ … (the vast majority of people on our planet) … to ensure that his ridiculous claims of “abundance for all” could then be realized.
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I suspected that the ‘all’ following abundance would be peppered with caveats, and these did not take long to present themselves. Later in the interview the ‘all’ appears to be limited to those already part of the Western world. The Restern world (to borrow Prof Sampie Terreblanche’s choice of words) needs to be kept out and away with impenetrable borders and a specific weeding out of those audacious enough to adhere to a different faith. Musk cannot be ignored as an agent for change, but I’d take on odds that this change will not include most of humanity.
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I think Musk overlooks the minor detail that the planet is already buckling under the pressure of providing what everyone demands now, and will certainly not be able to give everything that everyone wants any time in the future. The idea smacks of a profound ignorance, matched only by his boundless arrogance.
Yes. A ‘bumpy ride’ for the likes of him is likely to be a tortuous trail of suffering for billions. And your last statement might as well state - The idea smacks of a profound arrogance, matched only by his boundless ignorance.
Kudos!
I find myself regularly in this camp - especially with space datacentres. But I think Elon has spent all his innovator who can do anything credits when he turned to championing ideology that will keep his government funding flowing.
There is also a disturbing number of local entrepreneurs who are parroting the same brainless abundance script. Someone still has to do the work to produce anything in this world. Wall-E is a prophecy that I do not want to live through.
