Elon Musk Says ‘Money Won’t Matter’ After Losing $700B In Tesla, SpaceX Stock Crash

Tech mogul Elon Musk said “money won’t matter” in the future. The statement grabbed massive attention due to the uncanny timing. He made the comment just as his paper fortune shrank by nearly $700 billion as Tesla and SpaceX stock prices plunged over the past five weeks.

Elon Musk Believes ‘Money Won’t Matter In 2036’

In an interview with The Economist, Musk took the opportunity to discuss the importance of money in an AI future. He responded, “Money won’t matter in 2036.”

Thereafter, the interviewer challenged him by questioning how people investing in Musk-related stocks would react to this statement. To this, Musk replied that people only need money to purchase goods and services. He also said that if AI and robots make more than humans can consume, “What do you need money for in that case?”

Elon Musk also said that AI may alter how the economies function in the future. “Deflation will be the issue, not inflation,” he said.

To justify this narrative he noted that although there is a massive growth in the supply of money, there is a rapid growth in the supply of goods and services. And with AI, the surge in goods supply could outpace the increase in money supply, which could undermine the latter’s importance.

Nonetheless, later, Musk admitted that there are still lots of questions to be addressed about AI and also acknowledged the uncertainty despite the positives. “I’ve gone from exhilaration to terror regarding AI,” he said.

SpaceX & Tesla Stock Decline Wipe Out Billions In Musk’s Fortune

The comments coincided with a humongous drop in Elon Musk’s fortune. After SpaceX’s groundbreaking IPO, he became the world’s first trillionaire. His paper wealth hit its peak of approximately $1.45 trillion on June 16 when the market value of SpaceX rose to $2.64 trillion. His net worth was estimated to be about $738 billion as of July 23, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which lost approximately $700 billion.

The biggest losses were suffered by SpaceX. The SPCX stock has fallen almost 50% from its June 16 peak of $225.64 to $115.07 on Friday, July 24. It is worth a total $1.51 trillion, losing around a trillion dollars in market capitalization since the June 16 peak after its IPO.

The SpaceX stock plunge expedited after a delayed Starship launch on July 16, as well as a general selloff of AI-related companies following fresh post-IPO optimism. SpaceX had fallen seven consecutive sessions to close below the IPO price. Moreover, as CoinGape reported previously, SpaceX short sellers gained some $15.5 billion throughout the stock’s downtrend.

The Tesla stock slump earlier this week also impacted Elon Musk’s net worth. The company booked the second quarter’s revenue of $28.24 billion, surpassing analysts’ expectations by 7.10%, while delivering a record 480,126 vehicles. However, earnings per share, after adjusting, were at $0.33, well short of the $0.5367 consensus estimate by 38.51%.

This earnings miss pushed the Tesla stock weekly losses to around 19% as it closed at $313.03 on Friday. Nonetheless, Cathie Wood remained optimistic on Tesla and purchased over $51 million worth of TSLA shares during the dip.