When Elon Musk was asked at the All-In Summit if he’d learned anything from his brief, chaotic stint in Washington, D.C., he didn’t pause to consider. He just grinned and said, “The government is basically unfixable.”
The room laughed — but Musk wasn’t entirely joking. He went on: “It’s good to have talented people in the administration, but at the end of the day, if you look at our national debt, which is insanely high, the interest payments exceed the [Pentagon] budget and they keep rising.” Then, almost as if tossing off a punchline that doubled as prophecy, he added, “If AI and robots don’t solve our national debt, we’re toast.”
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That’s classic Musk: half humor, half warning. And while he may have been smiling when he said it, it’s hard to ignore how much faith he’s placed in machines to save us. He’s repeatedly predicted a world where every household owns a robot — the kind that cleans, cooks, or even works — and he’s suggested that automation will be so transformative it could bring about what he calls “universal high income,” a version of universal basic income powered by robot-driven productivity.
So, when Musk jokes that we’re doomed without AI, it probably isn’t just a throwaway line. It’s consistent with his broader worldview — that technology, not bureaucracy, is what’s going to fix what people have broken. After all, this is the same guy who launched rockets because he thought NASA was too slow, built an electric car company because legacy automakers wouldn’t, and created a tunnel-boring business because he got stuck in Los Angeles traffic. If he thinks government inefficiency can only be saved by robots, it’s very on brand.
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Still, the subtext of his comment hits close to home for everyone else: if the system is truly “unfixable,” what do regular people do? Most of us can’t invent an AI army or bankroll a Mars colony. But we can think about where our money sits — and whether it’s protected from the same inefficiency Musk’s talking about.
That’s where tangible assets start to make sense. Inflation, government debt, and high interest rates all erode the value of cash and weaken the reliability of paper promises. But things tied to real-world demand — homes, land, rental properties — tend to hold their ground. People will always need a roof, even if robots end up building it.
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And you don’t need to be a tech billionaire to own a slice of real estate anymore. Platforms like Arrived, backed by investors like Jeff Bezos, let everyday people buy fractional shares of rental homes with as little as $100. You collect passive income from rent and potential appreciation — no tenants to chase, no toilets to fix. It’s a simple way to own something real while the world debates whether AI will rescue or replace us.
Musk might see salvation in code and circuitry, but for everyone else, stability may still come from four walls and a deed. If the government really is “basically unfixable,” then hedging with something tangible — something you can touch — might not be such a bad backup plan.
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