Elon Musk has long been the loudest voice predicting that artificial intelligence will fundamentally remake human existence. In his vision, work becomes optional, goods and services multiply beyond imagination, and money itself may lose its meaning as AI ushers in a world of universal abundance.
But Michael Saylor, the billionaire founder of software firm Strategy and a vocal Bitcoin evangelist, isn’t buying it. In a recent interview on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Saylor pushed back against Musk’s utopian forecast with a blunt, characteristically contrarian take: human nature will never allow money to disappear, because we are hardwired to chase status.
When host Steven Bartlett asked Saylor whether he agreed with Musk’s prediction that AI would make money irrelevant, Saylor didn’t mince words. “Everybody doesn’t get a Hampton’s house. Everybody doesn’t get their own private jet. They don’t get their own private yacht,” he said. His point was simple: even in a world where AI makes necessities cheap or even free, people will always crave what they can’t have. “If I give you universal healthcare, people want private healthcare. If I give everybody a house, someone’s going to want a house twice as big,” Saylor added, his voice carrying the weight of a man who has built a $3.3 billion fortune by betting on scarcity. “Everybody’s always going to have a reason to want something more because we’re status-oriented animals. That’s the cynical way to look at it.”
Saylor’s argument rests on a historical pattern that’s hard to ignore. Technology has repeatedly turned what was once the privilege of kings into the everyday reality of the masses. Clean water, advanced medicine, X-rays, dental crowns—these are things Henry VII could never have imagined, yet today they’re taken for granted across the developed world. “Henry VII didn’t have dental crowns. He didn’t have X-rays,” Saylor noted. “[We] get modern medical care. The infant mortality rate has plunged. Life is safer. Clean water, clean air, right, clean food—and technology gave them to us.” But instead of extinguishing desire, this explosion of affluence has simply raised the baseline for what we consider luxury. “What happened with the explosion of affluence? Massive utilitarian entitlement,” Saylor said. “Everybody gets a car, but how many people get a Porsche? What happens with humanity is we always invent the luxury car—we come up with the trophy asset.”
Saylor finds evidence of this dynamic in something as mundane as dining. “In New York City, you can see that everywhere—why do we go to restaurants and pay $300 to eat at a restaurant because you can actually feed yourself on three bucks a day?” The question is rhetorical, but it cuts to the heart of his philosophy: abundance doesn’t erase the desire for distinction; it merely shifts it to new, more exclusive arenas. Even if AI delivers universal healthcare, housing, and food, Saylor argues, people will still find ways to differentiate themselves—through private healthcare, bigger homes, or the latest status symbol. In his view, money may change form, but its role as a marker of social standing is unlikely to vanish.
Saylor isn’t alone in believing AI will bring unprecedented abundance, even if he disagrees with Musk about the consequences. Dennis Hassabis, the recently appointed chairman of Google DeepMind, has predicted a “new golden era of discovery” driven by AI. Speaking on Fortune’s Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast, Hassabis said, “In 10, 15 years’ time, we’ll be in a kind of new golden era of discovery that [is] a kind of new renaissance.” He envisions breakthroughs in medicine and energy that could eventually allow humanity to “travel the stars and … explore the galaxy.” Similarly, billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla has argued that AI will usher in an era of bountifulness, though he warns that the economic benefits won’t be automatic. “Productivity will favor increasing average incomes but job displacement will do the reverse even as the goods and services produced increases dramatically,” Khosla wrote in 2024. “Universal basic income may be the best equalizer. It should be our goal to ensure that median income rises along with average income.”
For Saylor, however, the real question isn’t whether AI can create abundance—it’s whether humans can ever be satisfied with it. History suggests we can’t. Every technological leap has made life better, but it has also created new hierarchies, new desires, and new ways to signal status. The Porsche owner still wants a yacht; the yacht owner still wants a private island. As long as we remain status-oriented animals, Saylor argues, money—or something like it—will always have a purpose. Whether that’s a comforting thought or a cynical one depends on your perspective, but Saylor’s message is clear: don’t expect AI to make the concept of wealth obsolete anytime soon.
