Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has reiterated his ambitious vision for the company’s AI-powered humanoid robot, Optimus, during a recent conference call. He claimed that Optimus, which he described as “a fundamentally new kind of system,” would end poverty and give everyone access to the best medical care in the world. Even with these bold proclamations, Tesla will have a heavy lift ahead as it moves through early production frontiers with the bot.
The original plan from the company was to have thousands of Optimus robots manufactured and sent out by the end of 2025. Now Musk has announced that Tesla could push back plans to produce the third iteration of Optimus. They don’t begin running until the first quarter of 2026! “To be clear, bringing Optimus to market is an immensely challenging endeavor. It’s not a cake, it’s not a stroll,” Musk admitted, recognizing the challenges of creating such sophisticated technology.
Musk’s vision for Optimus hasn’t stopped there, and it doesn’t just stop there with making it functional. With this new and improved robot, he imagines a future where it can operate as a master surgeon, changing the landscape of healthcare altogether. This would be a robot able to turn the page on contemporary robotics, he claimed, creating for instance, “Optimus [the] incredible surgeon.”
The road to achieving this vision has been bumpy. Q1 2023 was a disappointing quarter for Tesla. Issues with Optimus piled on the company’s difficult start to the year. Even still, the company went on to post an all-time best quarter a few months later, marking a modest recovery in its main automotive operation. This recovery pushes hard for AI and robotics in that recovery. Many of these changes will lead to increased operating expenses in 2024, according to Musk.
Musk has worked to re-orient shareholders, investors, and employees alike to adopt an outlook that reaches far outside of Tesla’s automotive core. He says that the future is in AI, robotics and new approaches to operations. Yet taking this step will have a profound impact on the company’s bottom line. CEs are expected to increase significantly starting in 2026 with initiatives such as Optimus leading the way.
Musk is feeling the pressure more than ever. He just did raise the specter of leaving Tesla if his proposed compensation package, tied to his maintaining voting control over Optimus, isn’t approved. I’m not going to create a robot army in this post. I don’t want to be removed for unsubstantiated, absurd suggestions from ISS and Glass Lewis, who evidently have no clue as to what they’re doing. I’m sorry, but those guys are corporate terrorists,” he said with obvious ire.
Advisory groups like Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis have raised doubts about Musk’s Optimus vision. The tone Though their stubbornness about the project hasn’t helped, a big part of the fraught mood comes from Tesla’s own confusion as it figures out what comes next. Enormous AI development risks Musk’s concerns about maintaining control over the general direction of Optimus exemplify larger dangers at Tesla as a major AI development frontier.
