Elon Musk Warns Davos Of AI And Robot Risks

Elon Musk’s much-anticipated debut at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 22, 2026, was anything but understated. The billionaire entrepreneur, who has long been critical of the event for being out of touch with ordinary people, finally took the stage—and true to form, he delivered a heady mix of bold predictions, familiar warnings, and trademark humor. But beneath the jokes and the bravado, Musk’s message to the global elite was clear: the future is arriving fast, and it’s time to get serious about the risks and rewards of artificial intelligence, robotics, and clean energy.

According to Quartz, Musk’s appearance played like a greatest hits album, with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO reiterating themes he’s championed for years. He painted a future where robots outnumber humans, self-driving cars become ubiquitous, and AI sprints past the limits of human intelligence. But he also sounded a note of caution, invoking James Cameron’s iconic film to warn, “We need to be very careful with AI. We need to be very careful with robotics. We don’t want to find ourselves in a James Cameron movie—you know, ‘Terminator.’” It was a warning he’s issued before, but at Davos, it landed with new urgency.

During his conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Musk offered the crowd a few concrete milestones. He stated that Tesla aims to secure “Supervised Full Self-Driving approval in Europe, hopefully next month, and then maybe a similar timing for China.” The announcement sent Tesla shares up more than 3% after his remarks, as reported by Quartz. Musk also predicted that robotaxi service would be “very widespread by the end of this year within the U.S.”—yet another iteration of the “next year for sure” timeline that’s become synonymous with his public pronouncements. For years, Musk has forecast that Tesla’s self-driving technology was on the cusp of mass deployment, but as he acknowledged, the real challenge lies in convincing regulators, insurers, and the public to accept it at scale.

On the robotics front, Musk’s ambitions are no less grand. He revealed that Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots are already performing simple tasks inside the company’s factories. “Humanoid robotics will advance very quickly,” he said, predicting that by the end of this year, these robots would be handling more complex, industrial tasks. The biggest promise? “By the end of next year, I think we’ll be selling humanoid robots to the public,” Musk declared, emphasizing the need for safety and reliability before a broader rollout. He added a domestic spin to the pitch, asking, “Who wouldn’t want a robot to, assuming it’s very safe, watch over your kids, take care of your pets?” For Musk, the promise of humanoid robots isn’t just a technological marvel—it’s a practical solution to aging societies and labor shortages, a future where “there will be more robots than people.”

Yet, as AsiaOne noted, Musk’s vision for a robot-filled future is inseparable from the energy demands such a world would require. He argued that the United States could easily meet its electricity needs—current and future—by harnessing solar power. “You could take a small corner of Utah, Nevada or New Mexico—a very small percentage of the area of the US—to generate all of the electricity that the US uses,” Musk explained. However, he criticized U.S. tariffs on solar panels, saying, “Unfortunately, the tariff barriers for solar are extremely high and that makes the economics of deploying solar artificially high, because China makes almost all the solar and the tech.” It’s a bottleneck Musk sees as critical, especially as AI and data centers drive up demand for electricity.

Despite his optimism about technology’s potential to improve living standards, Musk’s warnings about AI were front and center. He predicted that “the rate at which AI is progressing, I think we might have AI that is smarter than any human by the end of this year, no later than the end of next year.” Looking further ahead, he claimed, “Five years from now, AI will be smarter than all of humanity—collectively.” If this sounds like science fiction, Musk was quick to ground it in practical terms, noting, “If we have ubiquitous AI, which is essentially free or close to it, and ubiquitous robotics, then you will have an explosion in the global economy that is truly beyond all precedent.” But he cautioned, as reported by The Economic Times, that such advances must be managed carefully to avoid dystopian outcomes. “We need to be very careful with AI and robotics; we don’t wanna find ourselves in a James Cameron movie, you know, Terminator. He’s got great movies. Love his movies, but we don’t want to be in Terminator, obviously.”

Throughout his 30-minute session, Musk peppered his remarks with humor, joking about dying on Mars—“People ask me do I want to die on Mars, and I’m like: ‘yes, but not on impact’”—and claiming, tongue-in-cheek, to be an alien himself. But the levity never fully masked the seriousness of his message. The future, Musk argued, isn’t just about dazzling new technologies; it’s about the choices society makes in deploying them. Regulators, investors, and infrastructure providers all have a role to play in shaping whether innovations like autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots, and superintelligent AI lead to “amazing abundance” or unintended disaster.

Musk’s Davos debut also came at a time when his ventures are under scrutiny. As AsiaOne pointed out, governments and regulators across Europe and Asia are cracking down on sexually explicit content generated by his xAI chatbot Grok on X, launching probes and demanding safeguards. While Musk’s session focused mostly on technology and robotics, the broader context underscored the complex challenges of governing AI in real time.

For all the familiar themes, there was a sense that Musk’s appearance at Davos was about more than just repeating old talking points. As Quartz observed, the real audience wasn’t just the assembled dignitaries and financiers—it was the regulators who write the rules, the investors who bankroll the future, and the infrastructure providers who will determine whether Musk’s timelines become reality. “For quality of life, it is actually better to err on the side of being an optimist and wrong rather than being a pessimist and right,” Musk told the crowd, urging them to embrace the future with hope, but not without caution.

One thing is certain: Elon Musk’s vision for the years ahead is as ambitious as ever, blending optimism, urgency, and a healthy dose of sci-fi caution. Whether the world is ready to keep pace—or heed his warnings—remains to be seen.