Elon Musk: ‘AI Will Replace Desk Jobs ‘Like Lightning”
Yahoo Finance • October 21, 2026
Elon Musk Says AI Will Replace Desk Jobs ‘Like Lightning’ — If You’re A Welder Or A Cook, Your Job Is Safe Much Longer
Artificial intelligence could make some office jobs disappear at startling speed, but the person fixing the pipes, wiring the building or cooking the food may have considerably more time.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made the prediction during a 2025 appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” where he described AI as a technology that could hit digital work far faster than jobs requiring people to physically interact with the world.
“AI is really still digital,” Musk told host Joe Rogan. “Ultimately, AI can improve the productivity of humans who build things with their hands or do things with their hands, like literally welding, electrical work, plumbing, anything that’s physically moving atoms, like cooking food or farming,” he continued. “Like anything that’s physical, those jobs will exist for a much longer time.”
That distinction puts workers at a computer on a very different timeline than workers whose jobs require them to physically build, fix or prepare something.
“But anything that is digital, which is like just someone at a computer doing something, AI is going to take over those jobs like lightning,” Musk said.
AI Still Needs A Physical World
Musk’s argument doesn’t mean physical jobs are immune to automation. Robotics could eventually change many of those industries, too.
For now, though, building the infrastructure behind the AI boom remains a decidedly physical task.
AI models require enormous amounts of computing power, and data centers require enormous amounts of electricity. That creates another potential opportunity around the infrastructure supporting the technology.
American PowerGen is developing natural-gas-fired power projects aimed at serving large electricity customers, including data centers. The company says it has a 22-gigawatt development pipeline spanning 16 Texas projects, as demand for reliable power grows alongside data center construction.
For investors who believe AI could be one of the defining technologies of the next era, the company offers a way to look beyond the flashy software and chips and toward the physical infrastructure required to keep it all running.
The Jobs AI Cannot Easily Digitize
Musk’s broader argument is less about declaring certain careers permanently safe and more about where AI’s capabilities currently meet the physical world.
A computer can write code, analyze information and generate content without physically moving through a building. A plumber still has to locate a pipe. An electrician still has to work with wiring. A farmer still has to operate machinery in a field.
That gap could become increasingly important as AI spreads into nearly every corner of the economy.
Musk has also argued that AI and robotics could eventually produce a world where traditional employment becomes less necessary. In that scenario, technological progress could dramatically increase productivity and create what he has described as a universal high income.
For now, though, the AI revolution still needs plenty of people—and plenty of physical infrastructure—to keep the digital world running.
