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The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, made his first appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, predicting that robots will eventually outnumber humans and proposing solutions to human aging.
The heads of Tesla and SpaceX have sat down with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink to try to change the direction of the tech billionaire, who has previously dismissed the world’s top political and business gathering as elitist and boring every year.
Mr. Fink began the session by instructing the audience to applaud Mr. Musk more enthusiastically. “There was no big applause. It’s a do-over,” the BlackRock chief said.
Musk referenced the peace summit and began with a joke about US President Donald Trump’s territorial ambitions. “And I thought, what is that? A little piece of Greenland. A little piece of Venezuela,” he said, holding back a laugh.
He also repeated claims about extraterrestrial life. “I’m often asked, ‘Are there aliens among us?’ And I say, I am one, but they don’t believe me. If there’s anyone who knows whether there are aliens among us, it’s me.”
Musk also told the audience that AI and robotics will cause an unprecedented economic explosion.
“We’re actually going to create so many robots and AIs that they’re actually going to saturate human needs,” he said. “My prediction is that there will be more robots than humans.”
Musk said Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot will be able to perform simple tasks in factories by the end of this year and more complex industrial tasks within 12 months.
“Assuming it’s safe, who wouldn’t want a robot to watch over their kids and take care of their pets?” Musk asked.
Aging is ‘a very solvable problem’
He predicted that AI will be smarter than individual humans by the end of 2026 and surpass humanity’s collective intelligence within five years.
Tesla is rolling out its robotaxi service in several U.S. cities and expects it to be widely rolled out across the country by the end of the year, Musk said. He added that Tesla hopes to get the vehicle approved in Europe as early as next month, but declined to say which country.
Regarding human longevity, Musk said aging is a “very solvable problem” and predicted it would be “incredibly obvious” to scientists once the cause is identified.
Musk was added to the WEF schedule as a last-minute participant, appearing the day after Trump spoke at the forum.
Musk has previously called the annual gathering “boring” and accused the WEF of becoming “increasingly an unelected world government” in recent years.
In December 2022, he said he turned down an invitation to attend Davos because it “looked boring.”
According to Forbes magazine’s Real-Time Billionaires List, Musk’s fortune is valued at $779 billion.
