Elon Musk said Anthropic’s extreme artificial intelligence (AI) growth scenario could become achievable once humanoid robots reach volume production, linking software automation with physical labor. Anthropic’s model envisages annual U.S. GDP growth of roughly 15%, enough to double the economy every 4.5 years, if AI outperforms humans across most knowledge-work tasks, performs nearly all of them autonomously and creates essentially no new knowledge tasks. Anthropic stresses that this is a conditional scenario requiring rapid adoption and likely recursively self-improving AI, not a forecast. Under those assumptions, U.S. GDP would reach $44.4 trillion in 2030, or 32.4% above the no-AI baseline, while labor’s share of output would fall to 45.2% from roughly 60%, capital would take 54.8%, knowledge-worker wages would decline and unemployment would rise beyond typical recessionary levels. The model excludes scenarios involving hyper-capable robots, making Musk’s comments relevant to Tesla’s Optimus program. Tesla describes Optimus as a general-purpose autonomous humanoid for unsafe, repetitive or boring work, and said in its first-quarter update in April that first-generation production lines were being installed ahead of volume production. Tesla has converted former Model S and Model X production space in Fremont for Optimus, although Musk has warned that initial output will be extremely slow. He also said AI and robots could more than double the global economy in less than 10 years. Anthropic’s comparison with 10,980 Americans found median assumptions closer to its substantial scenario, implying GDP roughly 10% higher by 2030 and unemployment near 5%; about 10% of supplied assumptions matched the extreme case.