Elon Musk Says Work Will Be Optional — but Mark Cuban Warns It Could Mean Higher Taxes

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is nary alien to producing headline-making predictions, precocious proclaiming a utopian presumption that “work volition beryllium optional successful the future” successful precocious March.

Fellow billionaire Mark Cuban didn’t precisely hold with Musk’s imaginativeness of the future, firing backmost connected X with a lengthy hypothetical instrumentality connected X’s concern and ineligible positioning moving forward. Seemingly sarcastically engaging with Musk’s optimism, Cuban stated large involvement successful seeing the risks and disclosures tied to the societal media platform’s IPO prospectus and aboriginal SEC filings.

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“Risks: Within the adjacent 4 years we expect to wholly recreate each processes and procedures successful each enactment to optimize the replacement of humans with humanoids and AI,” Cuban wrote, adding that the cascade of competitory and user risks were paired with an incessant request for endless licensed grooming worldly for Grok and different xAI-owned models.

But the “Shark Tank” property besides highlighted a hiccup with Musk’s proposal.

Tax Risks Also connected the Table If AI Succeeds successful Supplanting Human Labor More Broadly

Cuban continued his dystopian enactment of thinking, posing that should enactment really go optional owed to AI takeover of quality labor, each levels of authorities could beryllium expected to levy caller (and wildly unpredictable) taxes — including a “robot utilization tax, token utilization tax,” and more. Cuban didn’t precisely propulsion punches here, utilizing a beardown expletive to accentuate his point.

The logic is sound. Individual income taxes relationship for astir fractional of each national revenue, with Social Security and Medicare taxes taking up different 35%, according to U.S. Treasury data. Without Americans moving their accustomed positions and earning income — and frankincense paying their stock of income taxes — revenues would plummet, and authorities would request to scramble for caller sources of taxation income to regenerate these.

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Cuban Signals Trouble for Trading connected the Nasdaq: Does Grok Go Blockchain successful That Case?

Mark Cuban past pivoted to speech astir the imaginable that the existing marketplace infrastructure communal to the Nasdaq whitethorn not beryllium capable to “implement AI effectively,” blocking trading there. Instead, the “Shark Tank” property said, tokenization connected the “new Grok blockchain” would person to beryllium deployed arsenic an alternative.

And portion this is, of course, each a spot of cynical fun-poking connected Cuban’s part, his closing thoughts connected the taxable of SEC disclosures was a spot sobering.