After years of public criticism and labeling the gathering as an unelected world government, Elon Musk made his first ever appearance at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, January 22, 2026. I
n a high profile fireside chat with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Musk predicted that artificial intelligence will likely become smarter than any individual human by the end of this year or no later than 2026. He told the packed hall in Davos that by 2030 AI is on track to be smarter than all of humanity combined, a shift he believes will fundamentally decouple economic growth from human labor.
The Tesla CEO focused heavily on the transition to an era of material abundance driven by humanoid robotics. Musk stated that Tesla’s Optimus robots are already performing simple tasks in factories and predicted that the company will begin selling humanoid robots to the public by the end of next year.
He envision a benign future scenario where robots outnumber humans and saturate all basic human needs, effectively ending global poverty. Musk argued that in such a world economic output will be determined simply by the number of robots deployed multiplied by their average productivity.
A significant portion of the discussion addressed the physical constraints of the AI revolution, specifically the looming energy crisis. Musk warned that the world is producing AI chips faster than it can power them and identified electricity as the primary limiting factor for progress.
He highlighted that while computing power is growing exponentially, global electricity generation is only increasing by 4 to 5 percent annually. To solve this Musk proposed moving large scale AI data centers into space where solar energy is five times more efficient and the vacuum provides natural cooling.
On the regulatory front Musk shared updates regarding Tesla’s Full Self Driving software, noting that it has reached a level of reliability where insurers are offering major discounts. He revealed that Tesla is currently seeking regulatory approval to expand supervised self driving in Europe and China with hopes of a rollout as early as next month.
Despite his optimistic outlook Musk concluded by reminding the audience that safety remains paramount, urging for a responsible approach to superintelligence to ensure the light of consciousness is not extinguished.
