Elon Musk has outlined a future where money loses its purpose and energy becomes the core unit of value in society, driven by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and robotics.
Speaking on a podcast with Indian entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath, Musk said he expects that "money disappears as a concept" once advanced automation can meet human needs at scale.
He acknowledged that the idea "sounds kind of strange," but argued that if "anyone can have anything," there is no need for money as a way to coordinate labor or distribute resources.
According to Musk, the shift is directly tied to technological progress.
"If AI and robotics are big enough to satisfy all human needs then money is no longer… its relevance declines dramatically," he said.
Musk Looks to Science Fiction for Parallels
To illustrate his point, Musk referred to Scottish author Iain Banks’ Culture series — a well-known science fiction universe in which post-scarcity societies no longer use money.
In those books, he noted, "everyone can pretty much have whatever they want," enabled by unlimited energy and highly advanced machines.
Musk said the foundation of this future is energy itself, describing it as the most fundamental form of economic power.
"Energy is the true currency," he said. "You can’t legislate energy. You can’t just pass a law and suddenly have a lot of energy. It’s very difficult to generate energy, or especially to harness energy in a useful way to do useful work."
He suggested that as automation increases, societies may rely on "power generation as the de facto currency," with influence tied to whoever can produce and use energy most effectively.
Connecting the Vision to Bitcoin
Musk also connected this vision to Bitcoin (BTC), arguing that the network’s structure already links digital value to real-world energy expenditure.
"This is why I say Bitcoin is based on energy," he said, repeating that miners must consume electricity and computation to secure the system.
In his view, that requirement grounds BTC in physical reality, a contrast to money that governments "can print at will."
Under this framework, Musk said, a future economy may measure wealth not in dollars or tokens, but in the capacity to generate and deploy energy efficiently.