Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made good on his threats to steer his EV maker away from his core business to focus instead on AI and its humanoid robot, Optimus.
During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call this week, the mercurial CEO announced that “it’s time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end with an honorable discharge” — the clearest sign yet that Tesla is looking to get out of the car business as sales continue to circle the drain.
“We expect to wind down S and X production next quarter and basically stop production,” Musk explained. “That is slightly sad, but it’s time to bring the S and X programs to an end, and it’s part of our overall shift to an autonomous future.”
“If you’re interested in buying a Model S and X, now would be the time to order it,” he added, promising that existing owners would continue to receive support from the company as long as they’re still on the road.
Most provocatively, Musk revealed that the company’s factory in Fremont, California, would be transformed into a production facility for Optimus, an abrupt end to well over a decade of automotive manufacturing at the facility.
Both the Model S and X, a luxury sedan and SUV respectively, currently start at very close to the $100,000 mark, almost three times as much as the Model 3’s starting price, making them a major — and questionable — investment in 2026.
Tesla’s far more affordable Model 3 and Model Y, however, have become the company’s biggest sellers by a huge margin, responsible for a combined 1.6 million deliveries last year, compared to sales of “other models” of just 50,850.
In other words, the Model S and X were already dead in the water.
The news comes amid a broader slate of genuinely disastrous sales figures at the company. Tesla reported its first-ever decline in annual revenue, with sales faltering across three of the past four quarters. It’s the second consecutive year of overall decline, posting a steep 61 percent decrease in profits in Q4 of last year, compared to the same period the year before.
Now that Musk has massively tarnished the brand with his public embrace of far-right ideologies, putting a major dent in its cars’ desirability, and competition in the space is stronger than ever, particularly from China, the richest man in the world is ready to move on to his next shiny obsession.
It’s a major fall from grace, considering Tesla established itself as an EV pioneer early on, playing a major role in the popularization of electrification across the globe. But with its core business incurring devastating losses — and a major whiff in the form of the Cybertruck — Musk likely saw the writing on the wall.
Besides, Wall Street’s infatuation with AI was likely too hard to resist. For now, investors are more than ready to play along with Musk’s promises of transforming Tesla from a carmaker into an AI and robotics company. Despite a calamitous financial outlook, its share price has shown resiliency — soaring to an all-time high of almost $500 last month before falling back to around $422 this morning after the Q4 reveal.
Musk has some enormously optimistic plans in mind for Optimus. The executive has previously claimed that 80 percent of Tesla’s value will come from the robot.
But considering the current state of the bipedal android, which is currently still struggling to walk on its own, let alone complete any useful tasks without any human intervention, the company still has a lot to prove.
During this week’s call, Musk claimed that the plant in Fremont will produce one million units per year as a “long-term goal.” However, if reports citing insiders last year are to be believed, the company struggled to even meet its much more realistic goal of producing just 5,000 of them last year.
Musk also promised to show off a third generation as early as this quarter, the “first design meant for mass production.”
What the robot will be capable of in a real-world setting remains to be seen. Musk has previously promised that Optimus will eventually be even better than having a “personal R2-D2” or “C3PO,” referring to the fictional androids from the “Star Wars” franchise — a lofty goal, to say the very least.
But given the continued, unwavering support from investors, Musk and Tesla will likely be given plenty of leeway as the company continues to pull away from its core business.
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