ELON Musk will make it to Mars and America will see its first floating city in 2025, a PR expert has predicted as he laid out what to expect in the next 12 months.

Speaking to The U.S. Sun, Eric Schiffer, chair of the Los Angeles-based PR firm Reputation Management Consultants, gave his forecast for some of the wildest tech predictions in 2025.

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2025 could be another big year for Elon MuskCredit: Getty

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Will we see the first AI reality TV show contestant in the next 12 months?Credit: Getty

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A PR expert has forecast America’s first floating cityCredit: Getty
He expected a major year of tech advances, with a Jetsons-type lifestyle taking a big leap forward.

Schiffer also saw artificial intelligence as becoming ever more enmeshed in American society, with our first-ever AI reality show contestant debuting in 2025.

But he had a dire prediction for TikTok, warning it would be “dead” in the US by the end of the year.

2024 was a big year for Elon Musk as he continued his transformation of X – formerly known as Twitter – and became the most high-profile backer and supporter of president-elect Donald Trump.

Since Trump’s election in November, Tesla’s stock price has nearly doubled.

At the same time, Musk’s personal fortune, already the biggest in the world in January 2024, has ballooned to $440 billion, according to Forbes.

He is believed to have Trump’s ear and is continuing to pump money into SpaceX as he talks up his long-held assertion that he will get humans to Mars in his lifetime.

So what next for Musk in 2025?

“I think you’re going to see Elon and Trump go to Mars,” Schiffer said from his home in California.

He predicted a 2025 announcement from the new administration in support of Musk “in ensuring that the Trump administration is behind the landing on Mars.”

Musk plans to make HQ into ‘Starbase City’ with spaceport to take man to Mars
One of the other major themes of 2024 has been the closer integration of artificial intelligence into various aspects of our lives, from artwork to the workplace.

This, coupled with ongoing concerns about increased automation, has led to fears of a massacre of human-held jobs in the face of unstoppable technology.

Schiffer predicted an acceleration of both of those trends in the coming 12 months.

What are the arguments against AI?

Artificial intelligence is a highly contested issue, and it seems everyone has a stance on it. Here are some common arguments against it:

Loss of jobs – Some industry experts argue that AI will create new niches in the job market, and as some roles are eliminated, others will appear. However, many artists and writers insist the argument is ethical, as generative AI tools are being trained on their work and wouldn’t function otherwise.

Ethics – When AI is trained on a dataset, much of the content is taken from the Internet. This is almost always, if not exclusively, done without notifying the people whose work is being taken.

Privacy – Content from personal social media accounts may be fed to language models to train them. Concerns have cropped up as Meta unveils its AI assistants across platforms like Facebook and Instagram. There have been legal challenges to this: in 2016, legislation was created to protect personal data in the EU, and similar laws are in the works in the United States.

Misinformation – As AI tools pulls information from the Internet, they may take things out of context or suffer hallucinations that produce nonsensical answers. Tools like Copilot on Bing and Google’s generative AI in search are always at risk of getting things wrong. Some critics argue this could have lethal effects – such as AI prescribing the wrong health information.

“You’re going to see a giant rise of humanoid robots that are going to be now not only integrated in industry, but I think you’ll start seeing them in some of the homes of the wealthy elite and celebs,” he said.

“AI is going to potentially even participate in some kind of a deeper way, maybe even as AI contestants in reality shows, creating even more unpredictability and higher drama.”

CLOCK IS TICKING

TikTok’s future hangs in the balance after the US Supreme Court agreed to hear last-ditch legal arguments from the social media giant as to why it should not be banned or sold in the US.

The US government is taking action against the app because of what it says are its links to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have denied these claims.

Things you need to know about Elon Musk

ELON MUSK is the CEO of Tesla Motors, SpaceX, founder of The Boring Company, and co-founder of Neuralink and open AI

Fun Facts

Elon Musk’s net worth is $185 billion
Elon Musk has a total of seven children
Elon Musk has been married three times
He founded SpaceX in 2002.
He bought Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion.
The tech billionaire has a total of eight children.

SpaceX

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002.

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Trump has hinted he might take action against the law and save TikTok, creating more uncertainty for the app’s 150 million monthly active users in the United States.

But Schiffer was clear about what the future holds for the company.

“TikTok will be dead in the US,” he predicted.

“The Supreme Court will kill it, causing a lot of pain for Gen Z and millennials who will find ways to hack it with not quite the same experience.”

FLOAT YOUR BOAT

Schiffer predicted that the US will see its first floating city in 2025.

“We may see America’s first floating city, like what’s happening in Florida, and that will gain traction, offering what would be climate-resilient housing and a far more Jetsons lifestyle,” he said, a reference to the iconic 1960s futuristic animated show.

At least three floating cities have been proposed in Florida so far.

One, Little Lemon in Biscayne Bay, is designed to protect against storm surges with a Green Loop that filters bay water.

Another, The Freedom Ship, would be a mile long and 25 stories high and could house 50,000 people.

It would be powered by solar and wave energy and would complete its voyage around the world every two years.

A third, Oceanix, would be made up of multiple islands, each with a different function.

The concept, designed in collaboration with MIT and with the support of the UN’s Human Settlements Programme, would include self-contained city blocks on each island.