Elon Musk told The Economist that artificial intelligence will exceed the sum of human intelligence within roughly five years—and the establishment press responded by calling him names instead of grappling with what that means for every working American.
Musk sat down with editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes for a 90-minute interview that covered superintelligent AI, his stint leading the Department of Government Efficiency, and a future where technology could upend the entire economic structure of the country. These are questions that will shape whether your children have jobs, whether the government can print checks forever, and whether Americans stay in charge of their own machines. You'd barely know it from the coverage.
Gizmodo's headline called the interview a "meltdown" and described Musk's worldview as "often fascist and sometimes incoherent"—in the second paragraph of what is supposedly a news report. Business Insider, to its credit, kept the framing to straight reporting, laying out five takeaways without the editorializing.
So what did Musk actually say?
On AI, Musk predicted the technology will surpass humanity's collective intelligence "in around five years" and that soon "there really won't be anything that AI can't do better than humans, apart from being human, perhaps." He compared the coming intelligence gap to the one between humans and chimpanzees: "It's hard to imagine that the chimpanzee would be in charge."
Musk painted a utopian vision of what follows—an "age of amazing abundance" where "anyone can have anything they can think of." When pressed on how ordinary people survive in that world, Musk argued that goods and services would become so plentiful that traditional money loses meaning. "I think that the Treasury should just simply issue people checks," he said. Gizmodo framed this as "space communism" and noted Musk referenced Iain Banks and Star Trek as models—then sneered that Banks was a socialist, as if that settles the argument.
Musk has previously put the odds of AI wiping out humanity at 10% to 20%, and he didn't walk that back. His new posture: "Let's enjoy the ride, is my philosophy at this point." He suggested that even if a stop button existed, "we probably shouldn't press it." His conclusion: "You can't beat 'em? Join 'em."
On DOGE, Musk was more reflective. "I think I got a little too involved in politics, got carried away, frankly," he said. But he defended the core mission: tackling a deficit so large that interest payments on the debt now exceed U.S. defense and intelligence spending combined. The goal, he said, was ensuring money wasn't being "wasted or spent on fraudulent activities."
Minton Beddoes pressed him on the destruction of USAID, claiming people had suffered and died from the cuts. Musk denied anyone died and said USAID's functions were simply transferred to the State Department—all he did was "get rid of the fraud." Gizmodo insisted "there have been many deaths from the cuts to foreign aid" without citing a single specific case.
On AI governance, Musk proposed that leading AI companies hold safety calls every few weeks and review each other's models before release—competitors policing competitors, rather than government regulators who can't keep pace. He noted that "six months is a long time" given the speed of breakthroughs.
The man building the most important technology on earth just told you the world is about to change beyond recognition—and the outlets supposed to inform you spent their word count on name-calling. The open question is whether Americans will get a say in any of this, or whether the future gets decided by the people who already think they're in charge.