Working will be optional in less than 20 years

Asked how society changes if the work week keeps shrinking, Musk went further and said people will not have to work at all. On Nikhil Kamath's 'People by WTF' podcast, published November 30, 2025, he put a timeline on it: less than 20 years until work is optional, done like a hobby, driven by AI and robotics raising output enough that goods and services become abundant. The falsifiable test is whether, by 2045, employment is genuinely discretionary rather than necessary.