On June 21st, he announced on social media that he would engage in a "cage fight" with Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
To everyone's surprise, Zuckerberg actually accepted the challenge and shared a screenshot of Musk's tweet, responding with, "Send me the address."
While billionaires fighting may not be a novel sight, what truly captures attention is Musk's series of bold and relentless prophecies.
On June 6th, Musk made a prophecy about the real estate market:
"Commercial real estate is rapidly collapsing, and next up is housing prices!"
This is not the first time Musk has made bold statements about real estate, to the extent that some internet users comment, "Either real estate will crash, or Musk will go crazy."
Before the halfway point of 2023, Musk has already publicly spoken about the U.S. real estate market six times.
These include short prophecies on social media as well as in-depth analyses during public interviews.
On March 26th, while commenting on a tweet about the U.S. commercial real estate debt crisis, Musk mentioned the property crisis seriously for the first time:
"The (U.S. commercial real estate debt crisis) is the most serious and imminent problem, as are mortgage loans."
In April, during a public interview, Musk once again discussed the property crisis and offered an explanation for concerns.
He pointed out that remote work has significantly reduced the utilization of office buildings globally, posing a danger to commercial real estate. Currently, the vacancy rates for commercial real estate in most cities have reached historic highs. If this trend continues, banks may face a crisis.
"In a little while this year, the property crisis will become a very serious matter."
He mentioned that commercial real estate, once considered a grade-A asset held by banks, was considered safe. However, the situation has changed. The bankruptcies of many companies have led to non-renewal of commercial leases, resulting in risks and trust crises for banks.
In the end, his attitude remained filled with concern:
"It's a terrifying picture; bank failures have become headline news. If they suffer further blows due to the decline of commercial real estate, the entire system may face risks."
On May 13th, once again on Twitter, Chen Fang, the Chief Operating Officer of BitGo, a digital asset custody and security company, tweeted:
"Nowadays, people who own houses can't sell them, and people who rent can't afford to buy. We are trapped in this dilemma until the job market collapses. Now homeowners are forced to default on their mortgage loans, sending the real estate market into the next death spiral."
Musk immediately replied to Fang's tweet and expressed agreement, saying, "Very accurate."
On May 30th, David Sacks, a close friend of Musk and former COO of PayPal, retweeted a tweet about the crisis in Los Angeles commercial real estate. It stated:
"Los Angeles office buildings have an average debt of $230 per square foot, and the only building sold this year was priced at $154 per square foot. A lot of money lost. Brookfield, the largest landlord in Los Angeles, has defaulted on over $1 billion in loans this year."
Sacks commented, "The sale price of Los Angeles office buildings is lower than the debt burden. The same is true for San Francisco and other major cities."
Musk responded to Sacks, using even stronger language:
"Commercial real estate is rapidly collapsing, and next up is (residential) housing prices."
On June 6th, an OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) tweet presented some data: among the 46 economies tracked by the organization, housing prices in 31 economies have declined in the most recent quarter.
Musk saw it again and quickly responded:
"As high interest rates make housing more unaffordable, this trend will further accelerate."
In three months, Musk spoke out six times. He is not only an entrepreneur but also a real estate influencer.
Unlike other secretive tycoons, Musk always attracts attention and media coverage by speaking his mind.
Since Musk took over, Twitter's ad revenue has significantly declined. Some comment that Twitter has been brought down by his outspokenness.
But Musk doesn't care and openly declares, "I say what I want to say. If the result is losing money, so be it."
From elections to artificial intelligence, Musk's "prophecies" cover a wide range. Some of these "prophecies" have become reality, while others have faded away in the passage of time.
Elon Musk, the outspoken individual, not only concerns himself with real estate but also with other industries.
Regarding his own field of clean energy:
In July 2017, Musk boldly speculated at the National Governors Association meeting in the US:
"Except for rockets, all forms of transport will be fully electric. Not just cars, but also planes, trains, and ships. It's just a matter of time."
"In ten years, half of all new vehicles in the US will be electric."
This statement first appeared at the Governors Association meeting in 2017, and Musk continued to assert it until 2022, with a more firm tone:
"Soon, we will look at gasoline cars the same way we currently view steam engines."
In 2017, Musk stated that in 20 years, autonomous driving would become the standard for vehicles.
In July of this year, the popularity of ChatGPT reinforced his belief, and he spoke again, stating that the arrival of autonomous driving through ChatGPT is accelerating:
"Driving a gasoline car without autonomous capabilities will be like using a flip phone."
On May 26th this year, Musk specifically mentioned several competitors in a presentation and confidently stated that they are all in deep trouble, and within the next year, some of them will collapse.
He explained that in the current scenario of multiple bank failures and a worsening macro environment, if they cannot maintain sufficient cash flow, they will soon go bankrupt.
Another industry that Musk loves to discuss is artificial intelligence (AI). However, unlike Zuckerberg, who embraces the field, the usually radical Musk shows great caution and even concerns:
Computers, intelligent machines, and robots will become the primary workforce in the future.
This prophecy appeared in November 2016, where Musk not only indicated the disruptive impact of robots on the labor market under technological changes but also pointed out that a large number of workers would be displaced as a result.
AI is more dangerous than nuclear weapons and will be the root cause of the third world war.
In July 2017, Musk expressed his concern that artificial intelligence is the biggest risk facing human civilization.
He suspected that killer robots would become a major issue in the future: "The country that possesses the most powerful AI capabilities will become the world's ruler."
In response, Zuckerberg laughed at Musk, claiming he doesn't understand what AI really is, and Musk fired back, saying his understanding is "limited."
Robots will be the direction of human evolution, and biological intelligence and digital intelligence will be able to merge.
Musk described the primary form as using high-bandwidth brain interfaces to facilitate the symbiosis of human and machine intelligence.
Musk overall has a pessimistic view of the future job market. According to him, machine automation, autonomous driving, and the emergence of AI will all result in unemployment.
He believes that the government should prepare to distribute money to everyone, whether they are employers or employees, or even without a job, stating, "We will all receive a universal basic income, and it is necessary."
Apart from specific industries, Musk also acts as a "wild mentor" and shares his views on the broader US economic situation. Recently, he has been discussing "economic recession" the most:
A recession similar to the one in 2008 will occur in the US in 2023.
In response to the relentless rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, in January 2022, Musk believed that if it continued, the US bond yields and interbank borrowing rates would surpass the returns of the S&P 500 index, leading to the collapse of the US market and real economy.
Recession is very dangerous but will eventually come to an end.
In May 2022, Musk believed that the duration of the recession would be 12-18 months, and in October, he thought the recession would continue until the spring of 2023.
By December, Musk revised his prediction and warned the Federal Reserve: "If the catastrophic failure of regional banks cannot be contained, it may trigger another Great Depression." He predicted that the recession could start in 2023 and last until the second quarter of 2024.
The US will definitely default.
Regarding the deadlock over the US debt ceiling, Musk's prediction is quite straightforward:
"Considering the federal government's spending, it's just a matter of time before we default, rather than if we will default."
Even in the field of politics, Musk hasn't been left behind:
On March 18th, a week before Trump was indicted, Musk stated that if he were to be handcuffed, then in 2024, Trump would win the election with an "overwhelming advantage."
In addition to his predictions about the domestic economy, Musk also has a global perspective and has made predictions including, but not limited to:
In May 2022, Musk said that if the Japanese continued to not have children, unless there was a change leading to a birth rate higher than the death rate, Japan would cease to exist.
At the same time, he stated that Chinese workers have strong beliefs while American workers are addicted to fried chicken and cola. The Chinese economy will reach two to three times the size of the United States.
With his vision for the entire human race, Musk never forgets his dream of Mars. In 2016, he predicted that he would "definitely be able to go to Mars by 2025, followed by colonizing Mars."
Genius, madman, scientist, entrepreneur—Musk's words always capture the attention of many.
Under his series of predictions about real estate, economists have reacted.
Innes McFee, Chief Global Economist at Oxford Economics, tacitly agreed with Musk's viewpoint when faced with reporters.
He analyzed that commercial real estate in the United States has always been sensitive to changes in bank loan conditions. The turmoil in the banking industry could lead to tightened standards for commercial real estate loans. "The impact mentioned by Musk may even exceed our expectations."
Just as Musk first criticized the real estate market in March, the S&P Global Case-Shiller Composite Index showed a 1.15% month-on-month decline in house prices in 20 cities in the United States.
The subsequent trends became even more "strange," with the overall trajectory of the U.S. real estate market showing "rising in the east and falling in the west." After a 10% increase in house prices in the southeast, the west followed with a 2% decline.
The development of electric vehicles is also validating Musk's predictions.
According to Clean Technica, a U.S. electric vehicle market research firm, electric cars accounted for 45% of new car sales in the United States in 2023. While it is not as high as China and Europe, it is moving towards Musk's prediction of "more than half."
Furthermore, global advancements in autonomous driving systems are rapidly approaching the complete popularization Musk mentioned. It may still take some time, but major automakers are working to shorten the process.
The parts of the predictions related to China have also become a reality. In 2022, China achieved 3% economic growth, while the United States had 2.1% growth.
However, Musk's most accurate predictions are in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). With the emergence of ChatGPT, the global employment structure has been completely disrupted.
Under the trend of "AI substitution," companies such as BMI, Microsoft, and Amazon have significantly downsized, and graphic and 3D animation designers, as well as writers, are facing rounds of elimination.
Many people have prepared for unemployment, but unfortunately, it seems that the U.S. government is not prepared for Musk's prediction of "distributing money."
Whether Musk's other predictions will continue to come true remains to be seen with time. But the key question is why he always seems to be right.
What is a prediction? It is making judgments about the future based on the current environment.
Musk is an entrepreneur who is immersed in the forefront of technology and actively involved in business operations. His understanding of corporate entities, industrial dynamics, and the workings of the economy far surpasses that of ordinary people. This is where Mr. Musk's accuracy lies.
However, when it comes to accountability for accuracy, no matter what Musk says, nobody holds him accountable. Perhaps that is the reason why "Musk's words" can continue to be intriguing.
