Elon Musk says not to save for retirement as AI advances, just as Moderna stock jumped 177% on a landmark mRNA cancer vaccine trial win.
Elon Musk says not to save for retirement in the traditional sense, arguing that breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and medicine are about to reshape what money and long term planning even mean. He made the case this week while reacting to a landmark cancer vaccine result from Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA) and Merck & Co Inc. (NYSE: MRK), a trial that sent Moderna's stock up 176.97% to close at $174.38 on Wednesday.
At a Glance
- Moderna shares closed at $174.38, up 176.97%, before slipping 4.65% in after hours trading
- Merck closed 12.6% higher at $152.20 and gave back 0.46% after hours
- Musk called mRNA technology a way to turn disease treatment into what he described as a software problem
- BioNTech SE (NASDAQ: BNTX) rose 21.96% and Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: ARCT) jumped 25.21% on related mRNA news
- Benzinga Edge data placed Moderna's momentum score in the 95th percentile with positive short, medium and long term price trends
Why Elon Musk Says Not to Save for Retirement
Musk's comment came in a post on X responding to Scripps Research Translational Institute founder Eric Topol, who highlighted a Phase 3 melanoma trial showing that an individualized mRNA cancer vaccine, paired with Merck's Keytruda, meaningfully improved recurrence free and metastasis free survival. Musk wrote that despite mRNA's misuse during the pandemic, the technology carries enormous promise for curing disease because artificial RNA effectively turns medicine into a programming challenge rather than a purely biological one. His broader argument, made in earlier comments this year, is that AI and robotics could advance so quickly that conventional financial planning built around decades of saving may not matter the way it once did.
Moderna and Merck's Trial Result
The Phase 3 data marks the first successful late stage trial of its kind for a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine. Moderna and Merck reported that melanoma patients receiving the combination therapy saw significant gains in recurrence free and metastasis free survival compared with Keytruda alone. Topol noted the result builds on earlier signals of success in personalized mRNA approaches aimed at pancreatic cancer, triple negative breast cancer and non small cell lung cancer, suggesting the platform could extend well beyond melanoma.
Valuation, Momentum and Yield: What Moderna's Numbers Show
Moderna's post surge market capitalization reflects a company still working through years of post pandemic losses, so a traditional price to earnings ratio is not meaningful given negative earnings per share. The stock's momentum, however, is unmistakable: Benzinga Edge rankings put Moderna in the 95th percentile for momentum with positive trends across short, medium and long term windows. There is no dividend to speak of here, and Moderna's 52 week range has been reshaped entirely by this single trading session. The bull case rests on the idea that a validated individualized cancer vaccine platform, now proven in a Phase 3 setting, could open a large new revenue stream alongside Merck. The bear case is just as direct: one trial result does not guarantee regulatory approval, commercial pricing power, or durable profitability, and a stock that nearly tripled in a day can give back gains just as fast, as the after hours pullback already showed.
Quick Facts
- Moderna (MRNA): closed at $174.38, up 176.97%, then down 4.65% after hours
- Merck (MRK): closed at $152.20, up 12.6%, then down 0.46% after hours
- BioNTech (BNTX): closed at $113.12, up 21.96%, then down 0.55% after hours
- Arcturus Therapeutics (ARCT): closed at $10.28, up 25.21%, then up another 0.78% after hours
- Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO): rose 4.16% on the same day
Musk's AI and Healthcare Bet
This is not a one off comment from Musk. In June he argued that synthetic RNA advances could make medicine increasingly programmable and potentially capable of treating almost any condition, and he has said Tesla Inc.'s Optimus humanoid robot combined with AI could eventually deliver excellent healthcare access to everyone. Earlier this week he also responded to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's comment that AI firms need to prove their worth through concrete results like curing cancer, rather than promotional claims, with a blunt reply: