Everyone is still talking about money as if it’s solid, as if saving today guarantees safety tomorrow. But something feels off. Prices move. Currencies stretch and thin. Meanwhile, the lights stay on, or they don’t—and that difference matters more than any number in a bank app.
That’s what sits underneath the idea that saving money today isn’t much different from ancient people collecting shells. Shells worked because everyone agreed they did. Currency is the same kind of agreement. Useful, until it isn’t. Energy is different. A watt doesn’t care about belief. It either powers something or it doesn’t.
When Musk says the real unit of future wealth isn’t dollars or yuan but watts, he’s being literal. Energy runs production, transport, computation, and basic survival. Without it, money becomes symbolic. With it, you can still act. You can move. You can build.
Tesla makes this visible. Cars become batteries. Homes become small power plants. Storage turns energy into something you can hold onto. On the surface it’s technology. Underneath, it’s security.
If this holds, wealth is quietly shifting away from paper promises toward physical capacity. Not what you own on paper—but what you can keep running when things get unstable.