Amid abysmal car sales that continue to plummet worldwide and major regulatory hurdles plaguing the company’s driver assistance software, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is desperately looking to reinvent the company.
His newfound obsession has been Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot, an invention that he says will transform the EV maker into a $25 trillion robotics company. He’s promised that Optimus will account for the vast majority of the company’s already extremely inflated value — a claim he’s now taking to an extraordinary new extreme.
Responding to a clip of entrepreneur and investor Jason Calacanis claiming during a recent summit that “nobody will remember that Tesla ever made a car” and that “they will only remember” the company building “a billion” Optimus robots, Musk had a sweeping prediction.
“Probably true,” he replied.
Beyond once again demonstrating Musk’s penchant for making vastly exaggerated claims about his companies, the admission neatly summarizes what we’ve suspected for quite some time now: Tesla and Musk are ready to move on from the EV and are looking to capitalize on the next big hype cycle.
Tesla still has a lot to prove when it comes to its bipedal assistant. As part of Musk’s $1 trillion pay package, the company will need to deploy one million Optimus robots, a goal the mercurial CEO has promised could be achieved by 2030.
Reality, however, has plenty of catching up to do. The company has encountered major technical snags in its efforts to build out production lines and reportedly failed to keep up with its own stated goal of building 5,000 Optimus robots last year.
The company’s demos have also fallen far short of expectations, with one robot struggling to walk down a clear office hallway. Tesla is also still heavily relying on teleoperators, suggesting that autonomous operation without the need for a human pilot could still be a long way out.
In short, Musk’s extremely boisterous claims that “Optimus will eliminate poverty and provide universal high income for all” should be taken with a grain of salt.
For now, investors in the EV firm are happily buying into the CEO’s vision. The stock hit an all-time closing high of just shy of $500 in mid-December. That’s despite Tesla still facing declining deliveries and sales as it desperately attempts to reinvent itself as a humanoid robotics company.
More on Optimus: Amazing Video Shows Tesla Optimus Teleoperator Taking Off Headset, Causing Robot to Stumble and Collapse
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