Last year, Elon Musk said Tesla's value would soar to $25 trillion compared to around $1.5 trillion now immediately after the Optimus robot was first marketed. He predicted that Optimus would be used in every home as an assistant, on factory floors to replace human labor and even be sent to Mars to establish colonies. Among his initial goals was to produce thousands of robots this year.
However, according to a report by The Information today, the target of building thousands of Optimus this year has been delayed due to various issues encountered during development. The plan was found to be unachievable last summer. Among the issues encountered was the development of a complex hand.
However, Musk still wants to send Optimus to the surface of Mars as early as 2027 even though this robot is not designed to be used outside of an enclosed area. The extreme cold and dusty temperatures on Mars would cause Optimus to need to be redesigned to wear a space suit, which at this point still does not exist.
This report is actually not surprising because Tesla has not really promoted Optimus' true capabilities compared to Unitree and Boston Dynamics. Optimus did not participate in the Humanoid Robotics Games held in China this year. In fact, during the Cybercab launch event last year, Optimus interacting with visitors was confirmed to be remotely controlled by a human and not speaking using xAI as promised.
We previously reported that Tesla's board of directors wanted to reward Musk with $1 trillion if he sold 1 million Optimus commercially, Cybercab has been successful as a commercial robot taxi service, increasing EV sales to 20 million units per year and increasing Tesla's revenue manifold. But Tesla's EV sales have declined due to competition from China and Cybercab has not shown that it can operate without human supervision.
Despite facing various challenges at several companies he leads, Elon Musk still remains the richest person in the world with a price reaching $500 billion last week.