“The most likely outcome is that AI and robots make everyone wealthy. In fact, far wealthier than the richest person on Earth.” – Elon Musk, November 2025
Most of you reading this issue of Wealthy Retirement have been successful because you worked hard, saved your money, and made the right decisions in the markets.
Here’s the real question: What is the fundamental source of your wealth and a higher standard of living?
One of my favorite talks I’ve given was titled “What Really Drives the Economy: Consumer Spending, Business Investment, or Government Stimulus?”
The financial media often runs headlines such as “Consumer spending is the heart of the economy.” Yet retail sales is not one of the Conference Board’s Top 10 Leading Indicators.
The truth is that consumer spending is NOT the source of your wealth. It’s the consequence of your work. Consumption is the effect, not the cause, of prosperity.
You didn’t achieve financial success by being a big spender.
Nor is government spending the road to prosperity. Where does government get the money to spend? From you (the taxpayers) or from bondholders, who decide to lend the money to the government.
The Solow Model Reveals the Real Source of Prosperity
That leaves only one real source of higher living standards: business!
Years ago, Nobel laureate and MIT professor Robert Solow studied all the potential causes of economic growth in a nation. In his econometric model, he considered various causes of growth: consumer spending, saving and investing, government spending, foreign aid, and business and entrepreneurship.
He called it the Solow Growth Model, for which he won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1987.
His conclusion was overwhelming: The adoption of current and new technology developed by entrepreneurs is the major source of economic growth and higher standards of living, more so than capital accumulation or consumer spending.
Former MIT professor Shlomo Maital said it best:
“The health and the wealth of a large number of individual businesses – small, medium, and large – determine the economic health and wealth of a nation. When they succeed, managers create wealth, income, and jobs for a large number of people. It is business that creates wealth, not countries or governments.”
That’s why I’m a big fan of Benjamin Franklin, the father of American capitalism. He was “The First Scientific American” (the title of Joyce Chaplin’s biography) and came up with a number of useful inventions, including the Franklin stove, the lightning rod, and bifocals.
Parts 1 and 3 of my new book The Greatest American go into more details about his life as a scientist, inventor, and successful businessman. To buy a copy at a discount (only $24), go to www.skousenbooks.com. I autograph each copy and add a rare Franklin stamp.
We should honor all the great business entrepreneurs and inventors, many of whom were and are American. Forbes magazine recently ranked the top 250 of America’s Greatest Historic Innovators.
Franklin was #2, behind Thomas Edison. The rest of the list includes Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Graham Bell, and Cyrus McCormick. (Go here to view the full list.)
Guess Who’s Ranked the #1 Entrepreneur Today?
Forbes also ranked the top 250 living innovators in America. You can see the full list here.
Who’s #1? You guessed it: Elon Musk – ahead of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Charles Schwab.
Forbes’ rationale for giving Musk the top spot reads, “Tesla. SpaceX. Neuralink. xAI. The Boring Company. Musk is the only person in history to have founded (or grown from nearly nothing) five companies, each with multibillion-dollar valuations, each in a different industry.”
I went through the list and found that I have personally met 12 of the top innovators, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Charles Schwab, Peter Thiel (ranked #49), and John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market (#95).
The last two have appeared several times at my big conference, FreedomFest. John Mackey, along with Steve Forbes, will be at this year’s show. Click here to learn more about FreedomFest and register for this year’s event. Use the code “OXFORD100” to get $100 off the registration fee.
Musk’s Most Ambitious Master Plan X
Recently, I’ve been talking about Elon Musk and his company SpaceX, set to go public in mid-June as the largest IPO ever. It will make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
He has grand ambitions for SpaceX and Starlink satellite communications.
But I believe Elon Musk has an even bigger plan. I’m calling it Musk’s Master Plan X. I consider it the most exciting advance in technology EVER.
Musk’s plan is to completely reshape the way humanity works and lives. His goal is something he calls “sustainable abundance.” It’s a world in which we have an abundance of everything at affordable prices: energy… food… medical care… transportation… housing.
He plans to achieve this goal by radically advancing four key technologies: energy, robotics, space, and AI.
As Musk himself says, “The most likely outcome is that AI and robots make everyone wealthy. In fact, far wealthier than the richest person on Earth.”
That’s a tall order, but Musk has already achieved many extraordinary goals, advancing technology in electric vehicles, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, communications satellites, and reusable rockets, just to name a few.
I’ve been following Elon Musk’s career for many years. In fact, he made me a millionaire with his Tesla stock via my investment in the Baron Partners Fund (Nasdaq: BPTRX), a no-load mutual fund based in New York.
A few years ago, I had the chance to ask Musk a question about the future of Tesla face-to-face, and the video has gone viral.
Afterward, I asked Ron Baron, “Who is the next Elon Musk?” He said he didn’t know anyone who could match Musk’s brilliance.
I don’t either – and that’s why I believe he could do more for humanity than anyone who came before him.
Good investing, AEIOU,
Dr. Mark Skousen
P.S. I’ve been invited by USA250-Orange County (part of a national celebration of the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding) to appear in costume as Ben Franklin along with George Washington (played by Dan Shippey) at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, on Saturday, April 11, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. There’s no charge, but attendees do need to sign up here.
Speaking of Ben Franklin, my wife and I just saw the movie A Great Awakening, which portrays the relationship between Franklin and the dynamic Rev. George Whitefield. I highly recommend it. It’s in theaters now, and the actors portraying Franklin, Washington, and Whitefield were outstanding.