‘Tried to dissuade him, but unsuccessfully’: Elon Musk on Trump’s tariff policy

Tesla owner billionaire Elon Musk has said that he is a proponent of free trade and had tried to dissuade President Donald Trump from imposing tariffs but was unsuccessful. Speaking in Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamath’s ‘People by WTF’ podcast, Musk said, “I mean, the President has made it clear he loves tariffs. You know, I’ve tried to dissuade him from this point of view, but unsuccessfully.”

“I think generally free trade is better, is more efficient. Tariffs tend to create distortions in markets,” he said, adding that barriers make little sense even at a basic level. “Would you want tariffs between you and everyone else at an individual level? That would make life very difficult. Would you want tariffs between each city? No, that would be very annoying. Would you want tariffs between each state within the United States? That would be disastrous for the economy. So then why do you want tariffs between countries?”

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In a wide-ranging conversation with Kamath, the Tesla CEO shared his perspectives on various topics, including the H 1B visa system, while also offering a bold prediction about the future of employment.

‘My prediction is, in the future, working will be optional’

Musk also shared his views on how AI and robotics could reshape work and income over the next two decades. “My prediction is, in the future, working will be optional. They don’t have to. I mean, look, obviously, people can play this back in 20 years and say, ‘Look, Elon made this ridiculous prediction and it’s not true.’ But I think it will turn out to be true that, in less than 20 years, but maybe even as little as, I don’t know, ten or 15 years, the advancements in AI and robotics will bring us to the point where working is optional,” said Musk and compared future work choices to gardening as a hobby rather than a necessity.

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“In the same way that, like, say, you can grow your own vegetables in your garden or you could go to the store and buy vegetables. You know. It’s much harder to grow your own vegetables. But some people like to grow their vegetables, which is fine. But it’ll be optional, in that way, is my prediction,” said Musk.

“I’m confident that if AI and robotics continue to advance, which they are advancing very rapidly, like I said, working will be optional, and people will have any goods and services that they want. ‘If you can think of it, you can have it’ type of thing,” said Musk.

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‘Support high-skilled immigration, but…’

Musk also said that he supports high-skilled immigration but believes parts of the H 1B visa system programme have been distorted. “I think there’s been some misuse of the H 1B Program. It would be accurate to say that some of the outsourcing companies have kind of gamed the system on the H 1B front, and we need to stop the gaming of the system,” he said.

“But, I’m not, I’m certainly not in the school of thought that we should shut down the H-1B program. That’s which some on the right are. I think they don’t realise that that would actually be very bad.”