He is the richest man in the world with a fortune valued at $199 billion as of June 3, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
His name is the one that comes up, when elected Democrats castigate the 1% who do not pay, according to them, enough taxes. According to them, Musk is the symbol of tax inequality, a criticism the techno king rejects every time.
"For those wondering, I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year," he said on Dec. 19, 2021.
To his detractors, the billionaire has been claiming for many months now that his mission is to transform our civilization and to leave his name in history. This is a way of saying that he is not motivated by money. He set the ambition for SpaceX, his rocket and satellite company, to build the ship that will allow humans to colonize Mars. This rocket is called Starship. Considered the most powerful rocket in the world, Starship had its first orbital flight on April 20, which ended in an explosion a few minutes after launch. Another attempt is expected during the summer, according to Musk.
Information Is the New Money: Musk
With Tesla, Musk wants to push toward a sustainable energy economy. This involves promoting electric vehicles to make them the dominant mode of transport. Tesla wants to push the adoption of clean vehicles by opening its supercharging network to its competitors. An agreement was recently signed with Ford to this effect.
The tech mogul summed up his philosophy and his ambition to create a "future of abundance" at the Tesla AI Day last October, by presenting the progress made by Optimus, the humanoid robot that will, according to him, transform labor.
"This means a future of abundance, a future where there is no poverty, where people, you can have whatever you want, in terms of products and services. It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it," he said. "It's very important that the corporate entity that makes this happen is something that the public can properly influence," Musk said. "So I think the Tesla structure is ideal for that."
He has just confirmed his approach by affirming that money has been replaced by something else, as a new form of power. It is about information. The billionaire made the statement as part of a Twitter thread, in which the owner of a Twitter account indicated that per ChatGPT, the revolutionary new chatbot, the transfer of communications and information is what is today's concept of money.
The user does not say what question he asked ChatGPT, the face of the progress made by AI, in order to gets its response about money.
"In today's digital age, money exists primarily as electronic records in banking systems. Whether it's physical cash or digital transactions, the fundamental concept behind money is the transfer and communication of information," the user said. "Money carries with it data about its value, ownership, and the transactions it has been involved in. This information is crucial for conducting economic activities and maintaining the functioning of financial systems."
The Twitter user added that: "Moreover, money itself can be seen as a representation of information. The value of money is derived from the trust and belief that it holds, which is based on the information about its scarcity, stability, and acceptance within a given economic system. This trust is built upon shared knowledge and information about the currency, the issuing authority, and the underlying economy."
Musk, who is both pro AI and an AI critic — he was an early backer of OpenAI, the startup that developed ChatGPT — is in tune with this new paradigm in the power structure.
"Money is just information," the billionaire agreed.
The Singularity
What is interesting is that the author of the thread accompanied their initial post with a photomontage showing an individual standing on the top of what appears to be a tower overlooking cities at a distance. The top of the tower is covered with oversized coins.
The Twitter account introduced themselves as "documenting the Singularity," which is the time when technological evolution gives rise to machines more intelligent than humans.
The singularity also means that tech progress is so rapid that it would exceed the ability of humans to control, predict and understand it. Musk has previously warned of the rapid evolution of AI, saying that the technology is more dangerous than nuclear power.
Information is at the center of the evolution of AI tools powered by Large Language Models' technology. AI needs masses of data to train machines. The AI arms race between Big Tech and startups to develop powerful AI tools and to get to the level of artificial general intelligence (AGI) -- which is the main goal of AI users or the point at which a machine can understand or learn anything that humans can -- makes information a very expensive commodity. Basically, those who have the information, have the power.
Musk is building his own AI platform. Tesla also uses data from its customers to develop Full Self Driving (FSD), its driver assistance system, which is supposed to make its cars autonomous in a few years.
