El Salvador President Nayib Bukele states this is the feeling of a country that has not completed its development before the AI era
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele stated that this is the feeling of a country that has not completed its development before the AI era, accompanied by a video of about 13 seconds. The post did not announce any new laws, budgets, or projects.
The video depicts a battlefield: soldiers in helmets and gas masks reach out towards a truck carrying their comrades, which subsequently explodes, sending debris and bodies flying, with a close-up of a soldier's face. He uses this footage to respond, without narration or naming a country for comparison.
This is not an isolated statement. In December 2025, he wrote that humanity underestimates exponential growth, where initially small things can quickly become uncontrollable, and that a shock absorber must be installed before the AI era begins, or there will be trouble. In January 2026, he wrote that the government inherited one of the worst education systems in the world and is rebuilding all schools.
The same education post listed actions including: providing computers and tablets to 100% of students, supplying textbooks, learning materials, shoes, and uniforms, enforcing discipline rules, equipping each school with high-speed internet, and developing personalized AI tutors with xAI. He also wrote that there is a long way to go, but the goal is to build the best education system in the world.
Public safety and urban narrative is another publicly disclosed line. He has stated that El Salvador has always been an underdeveloped country, with the historical center of San Salvador destroyed by earthquakes, civil wars, decades of disorder, and over 30 years of gangs, making restoration more expensive and difficult than new construction. This post directly connects "not having developed first" to the AI era, without providing a timeline.
There are no new business targets. The post does not drive budget allocations nor point to any specific token or company stock price. Attention is directed towards the narrative of whether "late-developing countries can skip industrialization and go straight to AI," benefiting the official brand that ties together digital education, AI tutors, and security reforms, while pressuring the comparative framework that still understands the catch-up path through traditional industrial ladders.
As of the time of capture, the post had approximately 490,000 views, about 9,600 likes, and around 600 shares. Some replies interpreted it as El Salvador overtaking others before they have figured it out, while others drew personal comparisons to experiences at an old airport. The official account did not supplement policy texts under the post.
Source: Public information
ABAB AI Insight
Bukele's path is to first change the country's risk pricing before discussing technology. After taking office in 2019, mass incarceration of gang members reduced the homicide rate from a regional high; in 2021, he made Bitcoin legal tender, promoted the Chivo wallet and volcano bond narrative, and later clashed with the International Monetary Fund over financing conditions, leading to an adjustment of Bitcoin's legal tender status. The education line was not clearly articulated until January 2026 as "high-speed internet for every school, terminals for everyone, and personalized tutors with xAI," and this post did not introduce new contracts.
Money and resources were not mobilized in this video. The publicly disclosed mobilization is in school reconstruction, terminal distribution, and external model cooperation: terminals are the entry point, tutors are the application, and networks are the prerequisite. The motivation is to reverse the order of catch-up, using security improvements to retain people, and using the education system to accommodate models, rather than building a complete manufacturing industry first before discussing software. External model providers offer capabilities, while domestic budgets cover equipment and school buildings, with resources being imported intelligence and local deployment.
The analogy is not another explosion video, but Kenya skipping bank branches with M-Pesa and Estonia using digital identity to bypass paper government. El Salvador is currently in transformation rather than control: security and Bitcoin have already made a leap, while AI tutors are still at the "under development" stage, with no public coverage numbers, unit prices, or assessments. The position of late-developing countries is that they lack industrialization stock, but do not lack administrative windows to deploy new systems directly into schools.
This is an inversion of order in technological substitution. AI in industrialized countries is built on top of power grids, talent, and data centers; if countries that have not completed industrialization directly adopt tutors and terminals, what is being replaced is not old software, but the teacher training and paper teaching aids that were never built. The mechanism is that model capabilities can be imported, but school buildings and networks must be funded locally. Skipping has windows, and it also shifts the shock absorbers from factories and taxes to electricity, teaching staff, and foreign debt.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
The road not taken does not automatically become a shortcut.
What can be imported is the model; what cannot be imported is the foundation.
Late-developing advantages only exist if the shock absorbers are installed first.