Elon's $10T Robot Bet: Tesla's Optimus Pivot Sparks Debate
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Elon's $10T Robot Bet: Tesla's Optimus Pivot Sparks Debate
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Elon Musk has once again dominated headlines with his bold assertions about Tesla’s future, high-profile business maneuvers, an emphasis on robotics, and social media flurries that keep fans and critics alike riveted. According to Fortune and confirmed by multiple sources, Musk just declared publicly that Optimus—the humanoid robot Tesla debuted in 2021—will comprise an estimated 80 percent of Tesla’s total value in the coming years. He posted on X, the platform he owns, that this robotics project “will eventually be worth north of $10 trillion in revenue”—a staggering figure and arguably his most ambitious projection to date. Musk’s pivot from electric vehicles to “physical AI” was underlined in the recently released Tesla Master Plan, Part IV, which promises to usher in a new era of “sustainable abundance,” a phrase he reposted and touted in recent days. Analysts and technologists are taking these claims seriously after reports that manufacturing thousands of Optimus bots could begin as soon as this year, though the timeline remains speculative given persistent supply chain and engineering setbacks.
This week also saw the much-discussed debut of the new Optimus Gen 3.5, with Musk confirming its public unveiling is set for the end of this year and declaring it could be the signature version that brings the whole vision together. Tesla insiders point out that the bot’s hands alone have been redesigned four times in two years, indicating the breakneck speed at which development is moving, but also perhaps alluding to technical difficulties behind the scenes. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s CEO praised Tesla’s approach to neural networks for robotics and noted Tesla’s continued massive chip purchases, reinforcing the long-term symbiosis between Tesla’s automotive and robotics divisions.
Tesla’s future, however, isn’t without turbulence. TechCrunch and other outlets report Tesla abruptly shuttered its ambitious Dojo supercomputer project last month, a move Musk characterized as a strategic pivot toward external chip partnerships, most notably a $16.5 billion contract with Samsung to develop high-performance AI chips for both Optimus and Tesla’s next-generation Full Self Driving systems. This pivot has sparked debates: some call it a necessary focus, while critics frame it as another high-profile Musk promise abandoned in the face of mounting technical and financial hurdles.
On the social scene, Musk remains unfiltered on X, weighing in on everything from UK and EU politics to the recent viral posts about the wildly popular Tesla Diner opening, which saw crowds and extraordinary demand during its launch week. At the same time, protest movements against Musk’s growing influence, as seen outside the Palo Alto Tesla showroom, are gathering steam. Demonstrators have called for a boycott of Tesla products and have referenced the more than $800 billion in value Tesla has lost over the past three months, as noted by BBC and Yahoo Finance. In sum, as Musk doubles down on an AI and robotics-centric vision, he’s facing both resurgent investor hopes and loud, organized public dissent, proving—once again—that whatever he does, it will make news.
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