Elon Musk said artificial intelligence could surpass the combined intelligence of humanity in about five years, and that humans are unlikely to remain in control of the technology within a decade.
Speaking Thursday with The Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, the xAI founder said AI is on course to outperform humans at nearly every intellectual task.
"There really won't be anything that AI can't do better than humans, apart from being human, perhaps," Musk said. "The most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance where anyone can have anything they can think of. This may sound preposterous, but here we are in 2026. Let's see where we stand in 2036."
Musk says the risks remain, but the momentum is hard to stop
The remarks were the latest example of Musk describing AI as a force that could produce an "age of abundance" while also creating an existential crisis for humanity.
He said he still sees advanced AI as an existential risk, but no longer believes there is a realistic path to slowing its development.
"I can't see any way to really stop this incredible momentum of AI and robots," he said. "At times I think, well, perhaps even if there was a stop button, we probably shouldn't press it, because the most likely outcome is incredible abundance for all."
His proposal: regular meetings and limited model access
Rather than trying to halt progress, Musk proposed that the world's leading AI companies hold regular meetings focused on safety and security concerns.
He also suggested that competing AI labs be given limited early access to one another's frontier models before public release so they can identify dangerous capabilities. If a company failed to address serious risks, he said, governments could then intervene.
Musk renews criticism of Altman and OpenAI
Even as he called for cooperation among major AI developers, Musk took aim at longtime rival Sam Altman and OpenAI's shift from a nonprofit organization into a for-profit company, saying it had moved away from its original mission.
"Well, I'm not a fan of Sam Altman because you started a nonprofit that was meant to be an open-source AI company, owned by the world, and it somehow got turned into an $800 billion for-profit company with closed source," he said.
In May, a California jury rejected Musk's $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and co-founder Greg Brockman. Jurors found the defendants not liable on claims that they abandoned the organization's nonprofit mission by shifting toward a commercial structure. The verdict ended one of Musk's highest-profile legal challenges against the ChatGPT developer.
What he said about Anthropic and Dario Amodei
Musk also said Anthropic exists because co-founder Dario Amodei and his team no longer trusted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In his view, they otherwise would have remained at OpenAI.
"I think Dario is a very principled person. He cares about the future of the world, and I think everyone I've met at Anthropic so far has been well-intentioned. No one has set off my evil detector," Musk said. "The road to hell is mostly paved with bad intentions. There are a few well-intentioned paving stones in there, so we don't want to be complacent."
While praising Amodei's leadership, the report noted that critics, including Sam Altman, have accused Anthropic of fear-based marketing to sell its Claude AI products.
Despite the feud, he says rivals should still talk
Despite his disagreements with OpenAI leadership, Musk said rival AI companies should be willing to cooperate on safety.
"At the end of the day, if we have to talk, we'll talk," Musk said. "Set aside our personal differences for the good of the world."