Elon Musk confidently predicted that ‘money won’t matter in 2036’, and went straight into public ownership – 17 billion-dollar burns
Elon Musk has something of a poor track record in interviews not conducted by his devoted sycophants, and his latest run-in with an actual journalist isn’t going to do anything to shift the balance in his favour.
As we reported on Friday, Musk recently gave an extended interview to the Economist’s Zanny Minton Beddoes, and reacted badly to having his metaphorical feet held to the fire.
Absolute crash out from Musk after he’s presented with the reality that many, many people fucking hate him pic.twitter.com/W1MCPIr1uC
— Rachel Gilmore (@atRachelGilmore) July 24, 2026
The Economist has released several clips from the interview, none of which show Musk in a particularly good light due to obvious false claims and temper tantrums. This is one of them.
“Money won’t matter in 2036,” claims @elonmusk on the latest episode of The Insider. He tells @zannymb, The Economist’s editor-in-chief, how people will live when AI and robots can do every job and why he expects deflation, not inflation: https://t.co/IQwRnHXAXM pic.twitter.com/zdH36G9iaz
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 25, 2026
Imagine going on record trying to mansplain inflation to the editor-in-chief of the Economist, and still thinking you’re winning.
While Musk has dropped back from trillionaire status (probably temporarily), his many billions of dollars and recent political activities seemed like flies in the ointment of his outrageous prediction.
Tweeters helpfully pointed out the issues.
1.
Guy who says money is going to be pointless has made it his mission to have more money than anyone. https://t.co/FTZCKxdGPt
— Sir Humphrey 🇺🇦 (@bdquinn) July 26, 2026
2.
My fav thing about this interview is just how they are letting him speak uninterrupted while he says more and more stupid shit and tries to mansplain inflation to the Economists editor-in-chief 😭😭 https://t.co/1AB95dOxaa
— tom 🎸 (@uncreativetom) July 26, 2026
3.
(Guy hoarding all the socks in the world.)
“Don’t worry about socks.” https://t.co/fiiq9rRA5D
— Noah Garfinkel (@NoahGarfinkel) July 25, 2026
4.
Elon says money won’t matter by 2036 and we will just be able to print cash to offset job losses from AI, so then wtf was the point of DOGE and freaking out about spending? https://t.co/bwvlA8WvCX
— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) July 25, 2026
5.
Money won’t matter but @elonmusk went to court to get the biggest pay package in human history. https://t.co/gciF5yhEuU
— Magoo PhD (@HodlMagoo) July 26, 2026
6.
Then he should just give all of his away then by 2036. https://t.co/L1YO2jrdte
— Covie (@covie_93) July 26, 2026
7.
He is full of shit… https://t.co/MchjTvGLZg
— Lars Christensen (@MaMoMVPY) July 26, 2026
8.
“the future is already here. it’s just not evenly distributed.” – william gibson https://t.co/8OJBerfr42
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) July 26, 2026
9.
Capitalism seems really great at rewarding both the dumbest and worst that society has to offer https://t.co/UVjYXI3pJS
— 🌴 (@shawist) July 26, 2026