Elon Musk Says He Supports Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang, Claims UBI Is ‘Obviously Needed’
Tech entrepreneur, engineer and Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk took to Twitter Saturday to reveal that he supports Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
Musk made the comment in response to American podcaster and political commentator Dan Carlin, who responded to a Twitter post in which Yang expressed his belief in the importance of disagreement and openness to other people’s opinion, as The Inquisitr previously reported.
“I don’t expect people to agree with me on everything- that would be odd,” Yang wrote.
“My main hope is that people trust that I’m trying to solve problems and I’m open to different approaches — particularly if the data drives in a particular direction.”
He added that changing another person’s mind isn’t a bad thing.
“How weird that this should be a somewhat novel thing to say,” Carlin said on Twitter in response.
Musk responded six minutes later.
“I support Andrew Yang.”
Musks’ support isn’t surprising. Not only does Yang have close ties to Silicon Valley but his signature proposal is also a universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 monthly for every American over the age of 18 to combat job losses due to automation.
This is a proposal Musk is open to. Per CNBC, he has said he believes UBI could become necessary if artificial intelligence (AI) eventually displaces enough human jobs.
“There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation,” Musk said. “Yeah, I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen.”
Not long after throwing support behind Yang, Musk responded to a Twitter post asking about UBI. The 48-year-old said that it’s “obviously necessary.”
Musk believes that AI is eventually going to leave humans behind. In response, he wants to create technology that merges humans with AI via his secretive Neuralink company.
Per The Inquisitr, Musk aims to be able to implant internet-connected computers into human brains as early as next year. He believes the technology could help in the treatment of neurological diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
In a few years, using a brain implant to control your devices could be as normal as wearing wireless earbuds is today https://t.co/CTIUcF6BjS
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) August 7, 2019
The project hopes to harness a minimally-intrusive laser method for accessing brains. According to The Verge, the technology’s first big advance forward was thanks to flexible threads that pave the way for transferring a higher volume of data to the brain in a way that is less likely to cause damage as compared to current brain-machine interfaces.
As for Yang, Vox reported that he was the ninth presidential candidate to qualify for the September and October debates this fall along with Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar.
