Tech billionaire Elon Musk has claimed that medical degrees could soon become obsolete, predicting that artificial intelligence-powered robots will outperform human surgeons in the near future.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said humanoid robots, including Tesla’s Optimus, could surpass the world’s best surgeons within the next three years. Musk made the remarks while speaking on the Moonshots podcast hosted by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis.
According to Musk, human doctors require years of training, are limited by time, and are prone to errors, factors he believes will make them less competitive compared to AI-driven systems.
“There’s currently a shortage of doctors and great surgeons,” Musk said. “It takes a very long time to become a good doctor. Doctors have limited time and they make mistakes. How many truly great surgeons are there? Not that many.”
When asked by Diamandis whether people should still attend medical school, Musk was blunt in his response.
“Yes. Pointless,” he said.
This is not the first time Musk has made such a prediction. In April 2025, he suggested that robots would soon master surgical procedures, citing Neuralink’s surgical robot, which implants ultra-thin electrodes into the human brain with a level of precision difficult for human hands to achieve.
Despite rapid advances in robotic and AI-assisted surgery, medical experts caution that healthcare cannot function without human judgement, ethical responsibility and accountability, noting that technology is best viewed as a tool to support—not replace—medical professionals.
