Elon Musk painted a future where money fades from everyday life, while energy-based value takes its place as the key measure of wealth and power.
Speaking on a recent podcast with Indian entrepreneur and investor Nikhil Kamath, Musk said that he thinks “money disappears as a concept” eventually.
He called that idea “kind of strange,” but argued that in a future where “anyone can have anything,” people “no longer need money as a database for labor allocation.”
He linked that vision directly to advances in artificial intelligence and robotics. “If AI and robotics are big enough to satisfy all human needs then, then money is no longer… its relevance declines dramatically,” he said.
To ground the idea, Musk pointed to science fiction. He cited the Culture series books by Scottish author Iain Banks, and recommended that people read them.
Energy Replaces Money In Musk’s Future Vision And Bitcoin Fits The Model
In that far future setting, he noted, “they don’t have money either, and everyone can pretty much have whatever they want.”
Even in such a post-scarcity world, Musk said that some forms of value still matter. There are “some fundamental currencies, if you will, that are physics-based,” he told Kamath, then shifted the conversation toward energy. “Energy is the true currency,” he said.
That line set up his argument for why Bitcoin fits this picture. “This is why I say Bitcoin is based on energy,” Musk continued.
The network’s design forces miners to spend real electricity and computation to secure the system, which in his view ties digital value to the physical world.
Musk Frames Energy As The Ultimate Store Of Power Outside Government Policy
Musk then drew a clear line between energy and political power. “You can’t legislate energy,” he said. “You can’t just, you know, pass a law and suddenly have a lot of energy.” He called it “very difficult to to generate energy, especially to harness energy in a useful way, to do useful work.”
“We probably will just have energy, power generation as the de facto currency,” he said. In that framing, whoever controls the most efficient and abundant energy sources effectively controls the strongest “currency.”
That idea resonates with Bitcoin’s proof-of-work model, which already converts electricity and hardware into verifiable digital scarcity. Supporters often argue that this link to real-world energy cost creates a monetary system that cannot be inflated by central banks or rewritten by politicians.
Regulators And Activists Still Clash Over Whether Bitcoin Hurts Or Helps Energy Systems
Musk’s remarks arrive while Bitcoin’s energy use remains one of the most contested issues in policy circles. Environmental critics worry about carbon footprints and grid strain, while advocates say mining can incentivize cleaner generation and better load balancing for power networks.
He did not set any timeline for a shift to an energy-based value regime, and his scenario assumes a level of AI and robotic abundance that is still speculative.
For now, national currencies and conventional payment rails continue to dominate trade, savings and salaries, while Bitcoin trades as an asset that doubles as a long-term bet on a different kind of monetary order.
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