Topline<\/p>\n
Musk shared his hopes of dying on Mars, rehashed his futuristic vision for humanity, and joked about political tensions over U.S interest in Greenland and Venezuela during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos Thursday Morning, a surprise appearance that came after years of publicly disparaging the conference.<\/p>\n
CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, South African-Canadian-US businessman Elon Musk speaks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 22, 2026. The World Economic Forum takes place in Davos from January 19 to January 23, 2026. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
AFP via Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been asked a few times, do you want to die on Mars?\u201d Musk shared during his conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, yes, but just not on impact,\u201d he added, garnering laughs from the crowd. <\/p>\n
Musk opened the talk by joking, \u201cI heard about the formation of the peace summit, and I was like, \u2018Is that P-I-E-C?\u2019 \u2026 A little piece of Greenland, a little piece of Venezuela\u2026all we want is a piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fink focused on Musk\u2019s space and AI-related ventures, leading Musk to reiterate his vision for building advanced humanoid robots, which he said \u201ceveryone on earth\u201d is going to have<\/p>\n
When asked if he had any last words to share, Musk said, \u201cI would encourage everyone to be optimistic and excited about the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s inclusion in the Davos speaker roster was a last-minute surprise that came a day after President Trump\u2019s speech. <\/p>\n
Crucial Quote<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many myths around Elon Musk,\u201d said Fink towards the end of the conversation, publicly defending him, \u201cHe\u2019s a great friend\u2026and I\u2019m totally inspired by what he has done.\u201d Shortly before, Fink told the crowd he wanted to \u201chumanize\u201d Musk, garnering loud laughs. <\/p>\n
Big Number<\/p>\n
850 of the world\u2019s top CEOs and 400 top political leaders, including close to 65 heads of state and six G7 leaders, are attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, according to the organization<\/a>. Musk joins a long list of notable speakers which, in recent days, has included President Donald Trump, President Macron of France, and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. <\/p>\n Key Background<\/p>\n Musk has been critical of the World Economic Forum for years. In 2023, he responded to a video of the event\u2019s opening ceremony posted to Twitter with \u201cHow is WEF\/Davos even a thing?\u201d adding, \u201cAre they trying to be the boss of Earth!?\u201d He went on to compare<\/a> the summit to message board 4chan, which is known for being a platform for extremist points of view, joking, \u201cThere should be a game show: \u201c4Chan or Davos, who said it?\u201d The year prior, Musk publicly announced<\/a> that he had declined an invitation to attend the conference, calling it \u201cboring af.\u201d One reason for his past distaste for the yearly summit could be its viewpoint on overpopulation, which the World Economic Forum\u2019s official X account has called<\/a> \u201ca global challenge.\u201d Musk, who has 14 children and is an advocate for boosting world population, responded to that post with, \u201cPopulation collapse is an existential problem for humanity, not overpopulation!\u201d This year, he has yet to post about Davos to his X profile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline Musk shared his hopes of dying on Mars, rehashed his futuristic vision for humanity, and joked about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[198809,13529,79,193],"class_list":{"0":"post-423443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-davos","9":"tag-musk","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}