Elon Musk says high universal income could replace government ownership of AI

Musk asks Treasury to send money directly as AI reshapes the US economy

Musk made his views on X on June 20, 2026, responding to comments from Vice President JD Vance on The Diary of a CEO podcast. Vance had said the Trump administration was willing to take stakes in large AI companies, likening the approach to a sovereign wealth fund.

“Better to just send money directly to people from the Treasury,” Musk wrote. He argued that inflation will not follow until the increase in goods and services exceeds the growth in the money supply, a condition he hopes AI and robotics will produce. “In fact, I predict that we will desperately fight deflation,” he added.

A permanent position

Musk first raised the idea of ​​a guaranteed income at the World Government Summit in Dubai in February 2017, telling attendees that automation would impose some form of universal basic income. By December 2023, his speech had shifted toward what he called a high universal income, arguing that AI-driven abundance would eliminate scarcity in most areas of life.

In an interview with Nikhil Kamath published in late 2025, Musk said that AI and robotics, particularly Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, represented the main path to solving the US debt crisis. He predicted that the production of goods and services would exceed the inflation rate within three years.

Where Musk separates from Washington

Vance’s comments reflect a position shared in part by the Trump administration and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act in early June. Sanders’ bill calls for a one-time 50% stock transfer tax on large AI companies and would create a fund owning 50% of the voting shares in those companies, managed by an independent commission.

Trump discussed stock holdings with OpenAI’s Sam Altman and noted that his and Sanders’ economic views are not far apart on this issue. The administration has pointed to the conversion of grants awarded under the CHIPS Act into a roughly 10% stake in Intel as a precedent.

Musk rejects this model. He favors AI companies, including his own xAI, remaining entirely private while taxing their profits and distributing profits as direct payments. He argues that this preserves incentives for founders and avoids politicizing company decisions.

The Billionaire’s Backdrop

Musk’s statement comes days after SpaceX’s IPO, priced at $135 per share, pushed his net worth past $1 trillion. His roughly 38% to 40% stake in SpaceX, combined with Tesla holdings, made him the first person to reach billionaire status, according to several wealth trackers.

The timing has drawn scrutiny. Critics, including the advocacy group Oxfam, called the step a sign of extreme inequality and argued for a wealth tax. Supporters counter that most of Musk’s wealth is unrealized equity tied to companies that have reduced the costs of electric vehicles, satellite internet and space launches.

What comes next

Economists remain divided on Musk’s deflationary thesis. Central banks generally aim for moderate inflation, close to 2%, in part because deflation can increase the real debt burden and delay consumer spending. Critics also point to the engineering, energy and regulatory hurdles facing humanoid robots on the scale Musk describes.

David Autor and other labor economists have argued that automation historically creates new categories of work even as it displaces old ones, a pattern that could complicate Musk’s prediction that work would become optional.

For now, the debate sits at the crossroads between two policy paths: public equity stakes in AI companies, as Trump, Vance and Sanders have proposed, or private ownership combined with direct money transfers, as Musk has proposed. The path Washington takes will depend on how quickly AI and robotics translate into measurable output, and whether deflation or inflation materializes first.