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Elon Musk has some advice for you: Stop worrying about saving.
“Saving money for the distant future is pointless with the advent of super-intelligent abundance,” Musk posted on X early Thursday, Oct. 29, Futurism reported (1).
Musk is betting that artificial intelligence will create so much abundance that your savings won’t matter.
Of course, the people reading Musk’s post don’t have a trillion dollar cushion like he does.
Only 35% of non-retirees thought their retirement savings plan was on track in 2025, according to the Federal Reserve’s annual survey of household finances (3).
Social Security won’t close that gap on its own. The average retired worker received $2,071 a month at the end of 2025, according to the Social Security Administration (4). That’s about $24,852 a year. The 2027 cost-of-living adjustment adds an average of $75 a month to retirement benefits (5).
So here are 5 reasons I’d keep saving, no matter how smart the machines get.
1. Never bet your retirement on one prediction
I’ve lived through and traded markets during Black Monday, the dot-com crash, 2008 and the 2020 pandemic crash. Each time, plenty of confident people had a prediction. Plenty of them were wrong.
Musk may turn out to be right about AI someday. But “someday” doesn’t pay your property taxes or your Medicare premiums. A good retirement plan works even if the forecasters miss.
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2. Your biggest retirement bill may be care, not cars or trips
“Someone turning age 65 today has almost a 70% chance of needing some type of long-term care services,” according to the Administration for Community Living, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (6).
Maybe someday, a free robot will help you bathe, dress and get through the day. But today that help costs money, and Elon Musk isn’t paying the bill.
Medicare doesn’t cover custodial care, which can leave families facing six-figure bills that eat into retirement savings.
Long-term care insurance helps fill that gap, covering services like home care, assisted living, and help with daily tasks. Rates are typically lowest if you buy in your 50s or early 60s, couples often qualify for discounts, and premiums may even be tax-deductible.
A little planning now can spare your family a difficult financial situation later.
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3. Social Security is a floor, not a plan
At about $24,852 a year for the average retired worker (4), Social Security covers the basics for many people. It wasn’t built to cover everything.
And the program has its own math problem. Social Security’s trustees project its retirement trust fund will be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2032, “with 78 percent of benefits payable at that time” (7).
Congress has time to fix that. But I wouldn’t stake my retirement on a fix arriving, any more than on AI.
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4. Savings buy you choices now
Forget the distant future. Savings matter next month.
In the same Federal Reserve survey, only 63% of adults said they could cover a hypothetical $400 emergency expense with cash (3). That means more than a third couldn’t.
Money in the bank lets you retire when you want, help a grandchild, fix the roof or walk away from a bad job. That’s freedom, and you don’t have to wait for AI to provide it.
5. Run the “what if he’s wrong” test
If Musk is right and you saved anyway, you’ll have extra money in a world of abundance. That’s not much of a loss.
If Musk is wrong and you stopped saving, you could be 75 with nothing but a Social Security check. That’s a loss you can’t undo.
When one mistake is mild and the other is permanent, the choice isn’t close.
My honest take
Musk is a genius at building things. That doesn’t make him a retirement planner, and he can afford to be wrong. You can’t.
Keep saving. If the robots really do deliver that abundance someday, you’ll have a nice surplus. If they don’t, you’ll have something far more valuable: a retirement that doesn’t depend on anybody’s prediction.
The future is uncertain. That’s exactly why you save for it.
Sources: 1. Futurism; 2. Federal Reserve History; 3. Federal Reserve; 4. Social Security Administration; 5. Social Security Administration; 6. Administration for Community Living; 7. Social Security Administration
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