> who do they believe will be buying their products

Frustratingly, it doesn't matter.

Each CEO may be convinced that there won't be enough solvent consumers around for everybody, after everybody has gone full automation. Yet because there'd be a huge upside to being the only one to fully automate, everybody knows that somebody else will go there and destroy everything anyway. You might as well try to be an early adopter, reap some benefit to stow away safely, before everything goes to hell.

In other words, as fine a specimen of game theoretic dilemma as any.

The consumers will probably be the rising global middle class.

Rising after the jobs they are rising on are filled by robots? The "rising middle class" is not some abstract guarantee upon which we can rely regardless of what happens, it is a result of many complicated forces interacting, and we're talking about specifically nuking what is arguably the most important element of those forces.

Who needs people buying your products, if you own a means of production that will never rebel?

Anyone who finds their means of production needs replacement parts or labor to maintain the means of production in excess of what they can personally provide. Otherwise entropy will take your means of production from you.