WEF 2026: Elon Musk predicts robots will outnumber humans in AI-driven economy

Artificial intelligence and robotics could trigger an unprecedented expansion of the global economy and usher in an era of material abundance in which machines meet most human needs, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said Thursday at the World Economic Forum.

“If you have ubiquitous AI that is essentially free or close to it, then you will have an expansion in the global economy that is beyond all precedent,” Musk said during a fireside chat with Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock.

In a bold prediction, Musk said robots could eventually outnumber humans. Under what he described as a “benign” future scenario, societies would produce so many robots and AI systems that virtually all human needs would be saturated.


“There will be such abundance,” Musk said, that people may struggle to think of new tasks for robots to perform.

Musk further said advances in AI and humanoid robotics may offer the only realistic path to eliminating global poverty and significantly raising living standards worldwide.

He added that his ventures, including Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, have added “sustainable abundance” to their mission, arguing that AI-driven automation could unlock levels of production far beyond current human capacity.

In such a scenario, the tech billionaire said, economic output would increasingly be determined by the number of robots deployed multiplied by their average productivity, fundamentally reshaping how growth is generated across industries.

However, the Tesla CEO cautioned that AI and robotics are not without risks and must be developed carefully, a concern echoed by other business leaders and policymakers at Davos.

This marked Musk’s first appearance at the WEF in Davos. In recent years, he has been one of the forum’s most prominent critics, frequently describing the annual gathering as elitist, unaccountable and disconnected from ordinary people.

Broader business developments

Separately, Musk touched on developments across his businesses. His space exploration company, SpaceX, is on track for a potential initial public offering, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Bank of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are being considered for senior roles in leading the IPO, the report said.

Musk also said he expects Tesla to receive regulatory approval for its Full Self-Driving (FSD) advanced driver assistance system in Europe and China as early as next month.

Tesla has been seeking approval to roll out FSD in Europe, where stricter vehicle safety rules and a fragmented regulatory framework have slowed deployment compared with the United States.