Bessent says Americans won't need retirement savings: 'Elon's so far ahead of the curve'

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night that he agrees with Elon Musk's prediction that artificial intelligence will produce so much abundance that Americans won't need to save for retirement.

The exchange, flagged online by journalist Aaron Rupar, came when Hannity asked Bessent whether he believed Musk's claim that AI-driven wealth would make traditional retirement savings unnecessary.

"I do, but I think I would change the timeline," Bessent said. "I've seen Elon speak for a long time and he is — look, his record speaks for itself in terms, as an inventor, as a venture capitalist, as a great American. He's normally early. He's just so far ahead of the curve. He sees things that no one else sees. But I do think we are building this incredible economy that we can't even imagine."

Bessent added that a quarter of jobs that exist in 2026 didn't exist in 2000.

Musk laid out the underlying vision earlier this year on the Moonshots with Peter Diamandis podcast, calling AI and robotics a "supersonic tsunami" that would bring about a world of zero scarcity.

"Don't worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years," Musk, the world's richest man, told Diamandis. "It won't matter."

Musk predicted that by 2030, AI will exceed "the intelligence of all humans combined," and that humanoid robots will eventually outnumber people.

Bessent's embrace of that forecast landed at a pivotal moment for millions of American retirees.

The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report, released in June, projects that the retirement program's primary trust fund will be depleted in 2032, triggering an automatic 22 percent benefit cut for current and future beneficiaries unless Congress acts.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that an immediate 24 percent cut on insolvency would translate to an average monthly reduction of about $500 for retirees, affecting roughly 63 million people.

The trustees also noted the outlook had worsened partly because of the 2025 "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which reduced tax revenue flowing into the trust fund.

Musk's original comments were widely panned by financial planners. Business Insider surveyed seven personal finance and AI experts about his advice, all of whom urged Americans to keep saving.