Tesla Optimus — Tesla
The variety of claims Elon Musk has spouted about Tesla’s Optimus robot are nothing short of insane. He has said that Optimus will generate $10 trillion in long-term revenue for Tesla, that it will eventually account for 80% of Tesla’s value, and that it will increase Tesla’s value to a whopping $25 trillion. It’s a good thing Musk has a solid track record of delivering on his promises; otherwise, I would think this was the delusional rambling of a madman… Mind you, he also said Tesla would start a pilot production line of the finished Optimus and produce 5,000 units by the end of 2025, and that never happened. In fact, Tesla recently announced that it will unveil a new “production-ready” third version of Optimus (which implies the version slated for production in 2025 was never production-ready) and that by late 2027, production will start at Tesla’s Fremont factory, which was where the Model S and X were produced. With all of this as context, maybe we should take these far-out proclamations with a pinch of salt? In fact, if you were paying attention during Tesla’s recent earnings calls, Musk let slip something that not only demonstrates just how wide the gap between reality and Musk’s yammerings really is but also how little Musk actually understands the technology he is trying to flog.
For months, Tesla has claimed they had two Optimus robots working in their factories. This was the only scrap of evidence we had that Optimus might be capable of doing even the most basic tasks autonomously. I cannot stress this enough — the entire Optimus narrative hinges on selling this idea and convincing investors that this Johnny 5 impostor is more than just a teleoperated Disney animatronic from 2003.
But it seems Tesla might have massaged the truth here. During the recent earnings call, it was revealed that no Optimus units are currently performing productive work in any of Tesla’s plants. Musk stated that Optimus’ presence in the factory was “more so that the robot can learn” and was not assisting in production at all.
So, let me get this straight: The robot Musk wanted to start producing last year isn’t even capable of helping out at Tesla’s own factories. Like, not even in a gimmicky way? It couldn’t, say, pick up a box of bolts here and drop them over there — that kind of thing? More importantly, why are your robots being “trained” in the factory in the first place? I’ll discuss this further in a minute.
If you are shocked at this revelation, you should have been paying closer attention. Tesla has been desperate to sell this illusion of Optimus autonomy but has failed repeatedly. What about that hilarious failure at a Miami “Autonomous” event, where Tesla was trying to insinuate that the Optimus robots handing out water bottles were doing so autonomously, only for one of the robots to take off a non-existent headset and fall base over apex (watch the video here)? This effectively shattered any illusion and made it painfully clear the robot was being teleoperated. While Tesla hasn’t outright admitted that this bot was being teleoperated, it has admitted that the demo video of Optimus folding clothes with the VR puppeteer in the frame and the bots at the We Are Robot event, which were obviously puppeteered by interns, were both being teleoperated.
So far, Optimus has failed as a tech demonstrator, which means we should not be at all surprised that Tesla can’t get it to help out at its factories.
But the implications of this revelation go much deeper than you might think.
