# Musk expects AI to surpass human intelligence within five years

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/musk-expects-ai-to-surpass-human-intelligence-within-five/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Elon Musk](https://realalpha.app/builders/elon-musk/) · Elon Musk is a Tesla CEO.
- Host: [Chamath Palihapitiya](https://realalpha.app/people/chamath-palihapitiya/) · Founder & CEO, Social Capital · Led Facebook's growth team; his firm backed Slack and AI chipmaker Groq.
- Host: [Jason Calacanis](https://realalpha.app/people/jason-calacanis/) · Founder & CEO, LAUNCH · Early Uber angel; sold Weblogs Inc. to AOL; hosts This Week in Startups.
- Host: [David Sacks](https://realalpha.app/people/david-sacks/) · Co-founder & partner, Craft Ventures · PayPal's first COO, founded Yammer; White House AI & crypto czar 2025–26.
- Host: [David Friedberg](https://realalpha.app/people/david-friedberg/) · CEO, Ohalo · Founded The Climate Corporation, sold to Monsanto for about $1.1B in 2013.
- Show: All-In
- Episode: [Elon Musk on DOGE, Optimus, Starlink Smartphones, Evolving with AI, Why the West is Imploding](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/), Sep 10, 2025
- Moment: 28:52 to 31:27 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/musk-expects-ai-to-surpass-human-intelligence-within-five/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1732

## Quote

> “like say for argument's sake, like **10x more compute will double** the intelligence.”
> — [Elon Musk](https://realalpha.app/builders/elon-musk/) at [29:43](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1783) · All-In

## Takeaways

1. Musk gives a rough rule of ten times compute for twice the intelligence.
2. He expects AI to surpass any individual human as soon as next year.
3. He predicts AI could exceed the combined intelligence of humans by 2030.

## About this segment

Elon Musk offers a rough scaling rule: ten times more compute could double intelligence. He predicts AI may exceed any individual human by next year and all humans combined by 2030.

From “Elon Musk on DOGE, Optimus, Starlink Smartphones, Evolving with AI, Why the West is Imploding”, Sep 10, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[28:57](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1737) In terms of, people here like it, in terms of training Grok5, you're scaling up your supercluster in Colossus in Memphis. Colossus 2 now, yeah. We have a second one. Yeah, could you give us an update on that? And then also, as part of that, where are we in the scaling laws? If you scale a bigger cluster, do you get a more powerful AI model? Is there a point of diminishing returns? or like how much more compute, if you throw twice as much compute at it, do you get a 10% better model?

[29:31](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1771) Do you get a 100% better model? Like, is it log linear? What, I guess, how much more juice is there left in scaling hardware, do you think? I think there's a natural logarithmic function associated with the amount of compute. So then like say for argument's sake, like 10x more compute will double the intelligence. Maybe that might be a rough rule of thumb. But, you know, that still means that, you know, you go from 100 IQ to 200 IQ.

[30:02](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1802) It's still a pretty big deal. So, and I think we'll see intelligence continue to scale all the way up to where, you know, most of the power of the sun is fondest for compute and then ultimately most of the power of the galaxy. You know, sort of Kardashev-2, Kardashev-3 scale compute. So I guess once you think about artificial intelligence not as sort of this, you know, a destination that you reach, but really as part of the overall escalation of intelligence that we are aware of.

[30:45](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1845) um you know human intelligence has also scaled as you have as the population has increased um and we've been able to store more and more information uh human intelligence has scaled now human because of population declines and low birth rate human intelligence is is somewhat plateauing and will actually decline and my guess is that i i i think that we might have AI smarter than any single human at anything as soon as next year.

[31:19](https://realalpha.app/v/qeZqZBRA-6Q/?t=1879) Wow. And then probably within five like say 2030