Mark Cuban Predicts the World’s First Trillionaire Will Be the One Who Masters AI ‘In Ways We Never Thought Of’—But It Won’t Be Elon Musk Or Bezos

Mark Cuban isn’t betting on Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos to break the trillionaire barrier. Instead, he’s placing his chips on artificial intelligence — and whoever learns how to truly control it.

“The world’s first trillionaires are going to come from somebody who masters AI and all its derivatives and applies it in ways we never thought of,” Cuban said during a panel at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference back in 2017. Nearly a decade later, he’s still standing by it.

While Silicon Valley races to launch the next buzzy chatbot or virtual assistant, Cuban believes the real money lies not in the AI itself — but in how it’s used. He’s not talking about building the next ChatGPT. He’s talking about using AI to transform old industries, solve messy problems, and change how things actually get done.

“It’s the foundation of everything I’m doing right now,” Cuban said in a more recent interview, adding that he’s investing heavily in AI-powered health care startups. His bet? That the real explosion of value won’t come from consumer-facing toys — it’ll come from applying AI in practical, unseen ways that drive massive impact.

According to a Benzinga report, Cuban went even further, saying, “It’s not going to be someone like Elon or Jeff. It’s going to be the person who figures out how to use AI in ways nobody else has even considered yet.”

That prediction doesn’t seem far-fetched. McKinsey estimates AI could add up to $4.4 trillion to the global economy annually. Meanwhile, some projections peg the entire AI market reaching over $1.3 trillion by 2030. And Cuban? He thinks that number’s still lowballing it.

It’s not just about big data or robotics. Cuban sees AI as a tool to outthink, outpace, and outmaneuver everyone else. “If I had to start a business today,” he once said on “Shark Tank,” “it would be something AI-driven.”

So while Bezos is busy building rockets and Musk is wrestling with self-driving cars and flame-throwing tweets, Cuban’s eyes are locked on a different prize — the person who uses AI not to disrupt, but to dominate.

And if he’s right, the first trillionaire might not look like a tech god. They might look like the unassuming genius who figured out how to make AI quietly take over everything.