Elon Musk has said that medical degrees might not be needed in the future because AI-powered robots could do surgery better than humans. As the boss of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk said that robots like Tesla’s Optimus will perform better than the best human surgeons within three years.
He made this comment during an interview on the Moonshots podcast with Peter Diamandis. Musk said that human doctors take a long time to train, make mistakes, and are not as good as robots. He mentioned that there is a shortage of doctors and top surgeons right now. He explained that it takes a very long time to become a good doctor, and even then, doctors have limited time and can make errors. He said there aren’t that many great surgeons.
Diamandis asked, “So don’t go to medical school?”Musk replied, “Yes. It’s pointless.” This isn’t the first time Musk has predicted that human surgeons might be replaced by robots.
In April 2025, he had already said that robots would soon be able to perform surgery better than humans, pointing to Neuralink’s robot, which can implant very thin electrodes into the brain with precision that human hands can’t match. Even though robotic surgery is improving quickly, experts say medicine still needs humans for judgment, responsibility, and ethical decisions.