Elon Musk posted a graph to X on Sunday that has left people scratching their heads. At first glance, it appears Musk is trying to make the case that AI is revolutionary, and it\u2019s no secret the SpaceX CEO believes AI will change the world. But if you actually look at the graph, it\u2019s unclear what the hell it\u2019s supposed to represent.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI is a supersonic tsunami,\u201d Musk tweeted. The x-axis shows dates from July 2023 to July 2026 and blue bars that get larger as they move further in time.<\/p>\n
The only problem? There\u2019s no y-axis.<\/p>\n
AI is a supersonic tsunami pic.twitter.com\/JSaE91DkHS<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Is this meant to represent AI spending in some way? Data center investment? Some benchmark for AI capabilities? We first ran the graph through Musk\u2019s AI chatbot Grok, and it seemed fixated on the annotation reading \u201cit\u2019s so over.\u201d<\/p>\n As Grok tried to explain: \u201cAn arrow labeled \u2018it\u2019s so over\u2019 points to the still-near-zero period around November 2024. The joke is the contrast: at that low point people were declaring whatever the metric represents finished\/ dead, yet it later recovered and surged dramatically-the \u2018we\u2019re so back\u2019 part of the meme.\u201d<\/p>\n Grok just saying \u201cwhatever the metric represents\u201d and assuming it\u2019s a good joke is kind of perfect.<\/p>\n \u201cThe exact underlying data (search interest, sales, user numbers, meme usage itself, etc.) isn\u2019t labeled on the chart, but the visual and the annotation make the intended message clear,\u201d Grok continued.<\/p>\n Nothing is clear, Grok. But after hunting around on X, we eventually found a tweet from Paul Graham that was nearly identical<\/a>. Graham suggested it represented a company\u2019s revenue but didn\u2019t share which company.<\/p>\n Graham\u2019s version doesn\u2019t have the \u201cit\u2019s so over\u201d text. That appears to have been added by someone in Graham\u2019s comments<\/a>. Rather than retweet the graph, Musk just took it without credit, as he often does with things he finds online.<\/p>\n This is how some of you guys on here sound. pic.twitter.com\/wL10H2eKc8<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 \ud835\udd71\ud835\udd9a\ud835\udd91\ud835\udd91 \ud835\udd76\ud835\udd8a\ud835\udd91\ud835\udd91\ud835\udd9e (@full_kelly_) August 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Despite making no sense, some of Musk\u2019s biggest fans still pretended like it was some kind of genius image to share on X.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of my close friends and loved ones don\u2019t understand this yet,\u201d wrote Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital. Musk replied with \u201csame.\u201d<\/p>\n What exactly don\u2019t your friends and loved ones understand? Because if they understand that graphs are supposed to have an x-axis and a y-axis, they\u2019re probably going to be just as confused as we are. People on Reddit were also trying to come up with plausible explanations.<\/p>\n Musk, the world\u2019s wealthiest person, believes that AI is going to change the world, and he\u2019s not necessarily wrong in the broadest sense. When you probe for specifics, Musk is living in a fantasy world. The billionaire has claimed that AI will exceed human intelligence in five years and that humans will no longer run the world in 10 years. He recently told the editor-in-chief of the Economist that \u201cmoney won\u2019t matter in 2036<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The SpaceX CEO believes that robots and AI will deliver a world of abundance that means people won\u2019t have to work and everyone will get free stuff. It\u2019s a similar promise to those made in the 20th century<\/a>. But Musk rarely explains how this post-scarcity society will actually be administered. In his sit-down interview with the Economist, he said the U.S. Treasury would just print money, the kind of idea that makes no sense for a guy who whines all the time about takers who expect the government to deliver welfare benefits without work requirements.<\/p>\n On Monday, Musk tweeted about the mayor of New York\u2019s proposal for city-run grocery stores. Zohran Mamdani is building five supermarkets in the city that will offer essential food items at 30% less<\/a> than private grocers. Elon took the opportunity to insist that actually he would be the one to deliver free food. Eventually, anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they\u2019re doing won\u2019t matter,\u201d wrote Musk. \u201cAI & robots will actually deliver the free goods & services that those thieves pretend to offer, while actually stealing from others. Mamdani is a thief and a liar, plain and simple.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, Musk doesn\u2019t really explain how you get from AI and robots to free food. If the Treasury is printing money and handing it out to regular citizens, you\u2019d need Congress to pass a law making that happen. And it\u2019s unclear how Musk\u2019s robots would lead to any of that.<\/p>\n Maybe we\u2019re just not smart enough to understand the genius of Elon. After all, he\u2019s really good at making predictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n