Elon Musk Says AI Will Exceed Human Intelligence to a Degree That Is Impossible to Fully Understand

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By Jeremy Phillips Published

Quick Read

  • Tesla is building toward Full Self-Driving subscriptions that grew 38% year-over-year to 1.1 million, robotaxi testing in Austin, and Optimus Gen 3 humanoid robot production planned by end of 2026, while Nvidia (NVDA) reported $62.3 billion in Q4 FY2026 data center revenue with 75% year-over-year growth and Meta (META) is committing $115 to $135 billion in 2026 capital expenditures to build the compute infrastructure supporting this AI vision.

  • If Tesla’s robotaxi and Optimus timelines hold despite the stock trading at 324x trailing P/E and being down 24% year-to-date, the current pullback represents an opportunity to own companies early in a decade-long AI trajectory.

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Elon Musk Says AI Will Exceed Human Intelligence to a Degree That Is Impossible to Fully Understand

© Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images

If possible, Elon Musk’s recent appearance on the Moonshots with Peter Diamandis podcast may be the most sweeping claim he’s made yet.

AI won’t just surpass human intelligence. It will do so by a margin so vast that humans become, in his words, a “microscopic minority” of intelligence not just on Earth but across the entire solar system.

Host Peter Diamandis asked Musk to confirm that “we’re likely in the very short time to become a minority, then a vast minority, then a microscopic minority of intelligence on this planet.” Musk agreed and expanded the scope beyond Earth entirely.

To illustrate the scale, Musk offered an energy comparison: an AI using a million times more electricity than all of human civilization would still consume only roughly one millionth of the sun’s energy. The implication is that the ceiling on machine intelligence is essentially the output of a star. He added that such intelligence would “solve everything you can possibly think of” including longevity.

On his own AI product, Musk said Grok is “really, really good” and “the best at predicting things,” while flagging coding capabilities as the area where it needs to catch up to and exceed competitors.

What This Means for Tesla

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) is the most direct investment expression of Musk’s AI vision. The company is building toward FSD active subscriptions that grew 38% year-over-year to 1.1 million, driverless robotaxi testing that commenced in Austin in December 2025, and Optimus Gen 3 humanoid robot production planned before the end of 2026 with an eventual target of 1 million robots per year.

The stock is trading at a trailing P/E of 324x and is down about 24% year-to-date. Reddit sentiment has turned very bearish, with retail investors focused on near-term delivery misses rather than decade-long AI trajectories. If you believe the robotaxi and Optimus timelines hold, the current pullback looks different than if you don’t.

The Infrastructure Layer: Nvidia and Meta

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is the hardware backbone of everything Musk is describing. Its Q4 FY2026 data center revenue hit $62.3 billion, up 75% year-over-year, with Q1 FY2027 guidance of approximately $78 billion. CEO Jensen Huang said “the agentic AI inflection point has arrived.”

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is betting its balance sheet on the same thesis. Mark Zuckerberg said he’s “looking forward to advancing personal superintelligence for people around the world in 2026,” and the company has guided for $115 to $135 billion in capital expenditures in 2026.

Musk’s vision is extreme by design. The investment question is simpler: if even a fraction of this trajectory is real, the companies building the compute layer and autonomous systems on top of it are early in a very long story. The gap between the vision and today’s delivery numbers is where the risk lives, and it’s worth watching closely.

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About the Author Jeremy Phillips →

I've been writing about stocks and personal finance for 20+ years. I believe all great companies are tech companies in the long run, and I invest accordingly.

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