Elon Musk in full at Davos. Tech titan lays out a future built on robots, solar power and space infrastructure

Elon Musk appeared on stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week for a wide-ranging conversation with BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink. The discussion covered artificial intelligence, robotics, energy, space and demographics, and served as a consolidated statement of Musk’s current worldview across his companies.

Musk framed the conversation around what he described as a single objective: maximising the probability that civilisation has a “good future”. He linked that goal directly to the missions of his companies, particularly SpaceX and Tesla, which he said are designed to address long-term structural risks rather than short-term markets.

Making civilisation multi-planetary

Musk reiterated that SpaceX exists to make life multi-planetary. He argued that life and consciousness appear to be extremely rare, and that a single-planet civilisation remains vulnerable to natural and human-made catastrophes. Extending human presence to the Moon and Mars, he said, is insurance against that fragility.

He dismissed speculation about extraterrestrial visitors, noting that despite SpaceX launching roughly 9,000 satellites, there is no evidence of alien spacecraft. The absence of evidence, in his view, reinforces the idea that intelligent life may be uncommon and therefore worth preserving.

Starship, SpaceX’s fully reusable heavy-lift rocket, sits at the centre of that plan. Musk said the company is aiming to achieve full reusability, including rapid turnaround, within the year. If successful, he claimed this would reduce the cost of access to space by a factor of 100, bringing launch costs closer to conventional air freight.

Robots as the engine of abundance

Musk described humanoid robots as the most important product Tesla is developing. He argued that advanced robotics combined with AI will eventually saturate global demand for physical labour, producing an economy of material abundance.

In that scenario, robots would handle manufacturing, logistics, domestic work and care for children and elderly people. Musk suggested that everyone will eventually want a humanoid robot, not as a luxury item but as basic household infrastructure.

Tesla’s Optimus robots are already performing simple tasks in factories, according to Musk. He said they are expected to take on more complex work by the end of the year, with limited public sales possible by late next year. He did not provide pricing details, but framed cost reduction as inevitable once production scales.

AI progress and human purpose

Musk predicted that AI systems could exceed the intelligence of any single human by the end of this year or next, and surpass the collective intelligence of humanity by around 2030. He described this trajectory as likely rather than speculative.

He acknowledged that such progress raises questions about human purpose in a world where labour is no longer economically necessary. His answer was not policy-driven but philosophical. Humans, he said, will need to focus more on meaning, relationships and curiosity rather than production.

He also returned to a long-held view that aging is a solvable engineering problem. Musk argued that biological aging appears to follow clear mechanisms rather than subtle ones, and that reversing it is theoretically possible. He did note risks, including the possibility of cultural stagnation if lifespans increase without social renewal.

Energy, not chips, is the bottleneck

One of Musk’s more concrete claims concerned energy infrastructure. He argued that electricity generation is now the main limiting factor for AI, robotics and advanced manufacturing.

While AI chip production is increasing exponentially, global electricity supply is growing at only three to four percent per year. Musk pointed to China as an exception, citing rapid expansion in nuclear and solar capacity. He said China is producing roughly 1,500 gigawatts of solar capacity per year, and deploying more than 1,000 gigawatts annually.

Solar power, in Musk’s telling, is constrained more by policy than physics. He criticised US tariffs on Chinese solar panels, arguing they artificially raise costs and slow deployment. He claimed that electrifying the United States would require a roughly 100-mile by 100-mile area of solar panels, a small fraction of available land.

Space-based solar and orbital data centres

Musk went further, suggesting that space may become the lowest-cost location for AI data centres within a few years. In orbit, solar panels generate significantly more power due to the absence of night cycles, seasons and atmospheric loss. Cooling is also easier in the cold vacuum of space.

He said SpaceX is exploring solar-powered AI satellites and orbital data centres, potentially using space-generated energy directly rather than transmitting it back to Earth. This approach, he argued, avoids land-use conflicts and scales more easily over time.

Self-driving and automation on Earth

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On transport, Musk maintained that self-driving is a solved problem. Tesla continues to update its full self-driving software weekly, he said, and some insurers already offer lower premiums to drivers using it. He expects Tesla’s robotaxi service to expand across multiple US cities by the end of the year, with Europe and China to follow.

Throughout the conversation, Musk returned to a consistent theme: optimism grounded in engineering. He acknowledged risks, particularly around AI, but argued that pessimism offers no practical advantage. Being an optimist and wrong, he said, is preferable to being a pessimist and right, if only because it makes life more tolerable.