Startup entrepreneur, angel investor and podcaster Jason Calacanis spoke this week about how AI is affecting the U.S. workforce, including the technology’s impact on entry-level jobs that Gen Z workers need to launch careers.
Calacanis warned: “Before 2030 you’re going to see Amazon, which has massively invested in [AI], replace all factory workers and all drivers … It will be 100% robotic, which means all of those workers are going away. Every Amazon worker. UPS, gone. FedEx, gone.”
“Before 2030 you’re going to see Amazon, which has massively invested in [AI], replace all factory workers and all drivers … It will be 100% robotic, which means all of those workers are going away. Every Amazon worker. UPS, gone. FedEx, gone,” per Jason Calacanis pic.twitter.com/dlvmyDkG6N
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) September 6, 2025
Calacanis’s friend, billionaire Elon Musk, replied to Calacanis’s comment: “AI and robots will replace all jobs. Working will be optional, like growing your own vegetables, instead of buying them from the store.”
[Note: After Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and re-organized the management and governance structure, Calacanis helped run the company along with venture capitalist David Sacks, who is now chair of President Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.]
When ‘American Citizen’ on X joked about robots paying taxes, Calacanis replied: “This sounds crazy right now, but a tax on robots used to transition workers out of jobs will not seem crazy in 36 months.”
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders — who is known for ‘fighting the oligarchy’ and criticizing mega-billionaires whom he accuses of hijacking the economy and enriching themselves at the expense of working families — jumped into the conversation and found himself in an unusual position: Sanders is in agreement with Musk.
I don’t often agree with Elon Musk, but I fear that he may be right when he says, “AI and robots will replace all jobs.”
So what happens to workers who have no jobs and no income?
AI & robotics must benefit all of humanity, not just billionaires. https://t.co/4uNeMy1Pnj
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 22, 2025
Sanders wrote: “I don’t often agree with Elon Musk, but I fear that he may be right when he says, ‘AI and robots will replace all jobs.’ So what happens to workers who have no jobs and no income? AI & robotics must benefit all of humanity, not just billionaires.”
More than one X user replied to Sanders with a post Musk published a few days ago: “Working will be optional in the future. There will be universal high income.”
Universal basic income (UBI) is a program, considered utopian by many, that would provide all citizens a regular minimum income payment from the government. Musk has previously predicted the implementation of such a program in the future, largely funded by wealth generated through technological advances.
The current GOP agenda, with its emphasis on increasing work requirements related to the receipt of government-funded healthcare benefits, is presently moving in the opposite direction.