Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is slated to get richer. With a current worth of nearly US$500 billion (roughly Rs 44 lakh crore), Musk has been voted a pay package of US$1 trillion (roughly Rs 88 lakh crore) by Tesla shareholders, over the next ten years, subject to his achieving certain tough targets. To put things in perspective, the Indian budget for 2025-26, which caters to the needs of 145 crore people, was only Rs 50.65 lakh crore (US$575 billion). According to Forbes, the richest Indian, Mukesh Ambani, was the 17th in the list of world’s rich people, and had a net worth of US$109 billion i.e., Rs 9.6 lakh crore.
The market capitalisation of Nvidia Corporation, a US company manufacturing graphics processing unit (GPUs), systems on chips (SoCs), and application programming interfaces (APIs), is US$4.57 trillion (Rs.402 lakh crore) ~ slightly more than India’s GDP. Currently, all the world’s ten most valuable companies, have market caps exceeding US$1 trillion. There has been a quantum increase in the wealth of tech companies, and their owners since 2020; the richest person in 2020 was Jeff Bezos of Amazon with wealth of US$113 billion, and the largest corporate was Apple with a market capitalisation of US$2.25 trillion. Back in 2015, the richest man was Bill Gates, with a worth of US$79.2 billion and Apple had the highest market capitalisation of US$598 billion.
Thus, it would appear that the size of tech biggies has skyrocketed over the years, with their top bosses raking in the moolah by the bucketful. This trend is reflected in India too, though the rise in market capitalisation of corporates, and net worth of the rich, has not been so pronounced, probably because we do not have tech companies of a similar gigantic scale. Currently, with a market capitalisation of Rs.20 lakh crore (US$229 billion), Reliance Industries Ltd. is India’s most valuable company; in 2020 the market capitalisation of RIL was Rs 12.6 lakh crore, and in 2015 the market capitalisation of RIL was Rs 2.92 lakh crore; TCS was the most valuable company in 2015, with a market cap of Rs 5.12 lakh crore.
The reason for runaway appreciation in the value of large corporates the world over is that they have performed exceedingly well; sales, profits and share prices, all have increased precipitously. Consequently, the wealth of their shareholders has increased rapidly. Undeniably, these large tech corporates have created wealth for society e.g., numerous job and business opportunities in the IT sector, as also, enhanced productivity in all sectors. So far so good; but we are at a crucial crossroads now. The last fifty years have witnessed a persistent change in the corporate and government working environment; earlier machines were used as a substitute for animal and human labour, but now computers have increasingly started replacing humans, even in tasks involving thinking and reasoning.
Initially, computers were used for low-intelligence, repetitive tasks like payroll maintenance, for which they were eminently suited. For example, in the bad old days, a person retiring from Government service had to wait for months for his pension and provident fund dues, because the army of Government clerks was unable to handle the voluminous data of millions of employees; but after computerisation, a few computer operators, and some few computers, keep the Government employee database in fine fettle, and a retiree receives all his payments the day he retires. However, on the flip side, computers have made most ministerial staff redundant; CAD/CAM, and allied technologies, have done the same, for workers on the shopfloor.
Next on the scene was artificial intelligence (AI) which has taken away entry level accounting, customer service, reporting, and administrative support jobs. Significantly, in the first ten months of 2025, AI has been responsible for 11 lakh layoffs in the US tech sector. The advent of AI-enabled humanoid robots, promised by Musk, would mean that all tasks, even those involving complex decision-making, can be automated, and completed, without human interference. With higher-order machines controlling lower order machines, the need for humans in a futuristic office, or factory, will be minimal.
This is not science fiction; last month, Elon Musk posted on X: “AI and robots will replace all jobs. Working will be optional, like growing your own vegetables, instead of buying them from the store.” Realising that the disruptive effect of Tesla’s AI-enabled robot Optimus on the job market was sure to draw the ire of lawmakers, Musk was quick to add that Optimus would soon eradicate global poverty, and make top-class medical care available to everyone. Tesla shareholders, and acolytes like New York-based financial analyst Dan Ives, who see Musk as a “modern day Albert Einstein, a Thomas Edison,” support Musk’s vision. Musk’s one trillion pay package is contingent upon Tesla selling one million Optimus robots, in the next decade.
Though not produced commercially so far, demo models of Optimus have been seen handing out candy on Halloween, performing Kung Fu with Jared Leto, the American actor and musician, and dancing onstage at Tesla’s recent shareholder meeting. According to Musk, Tesla’s Optimus robot will retail for US$20,000 to US$30,000, which is the price of a mid-sized car, and will have five times the productivity of a human being, because Optimus would be able to work 24X7. Thus, Musk predicted that aided by the Optimus robot, the global economy will grow by a factor of ten, or even one hundred.
Going even further, Musk claimed that Optimus could change the way we live; for example, Optimus would make jails redundant, because the robot could “follow you around and stop you from doing crime.” As regards displaced workers, Musk suggested that they could be pensioned off on a fixed sum, a Universal Basic Income (UBI); a sentiment echoed by his fellow robber barons, Sam Altman (CEO of Open AI), Chris Hughes (co-founder of Facebook) and Pierre Omidyar (founder of eBay). None of these plutocrats have bothered to think about the comprehensive or long-term effects of their innovations; for example, how would a self-respecting person feel when made to survive on doles, or what opportunities would be available for someone wanting to better his lot? The progeny of UBI beneficiaries would most probably be forced to subsist on UBI, while Musk and his multiple progenies would lord it over the world, living the high life, roaming at their will on their private jets.
Consider India’s farm sector, which employs more than 26 crore workers; mechanised agriculture, aided by humanoid robots, could bring down agricultural employment to a trifling figure. One can be sure that the fate of the more than 25 crore jobless workers would not be of much interest to Musk. Just as most countries had enacted laws to regulate human genetic research, and are in the process of regulating the use and development of AI, with persons like Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, and even Musk, publicly calling for immediate regulation of AI, it is time that the development of humanoid robots is also regulated. In the alternative, we would have catastrophic disruptions that no one would be able to handle. As Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft has warned: “Artificial Intelligence will evolve to become a superintelligence. We need to be mindful of how it’s developed and ensure that it aligns with humanity’s best interests.”
(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)