#01
When will Optimus be produced and sold, and how many?
Interviews
16
Answers
16
X posts
3
Span
2023 to 2026
First asked Nov 9, 2023, most recently Oct 10, 2026. Excerpts below are from machine transcripts with filler words (um, uh, you know) and stutters removed; … marks a cut. They are not checked word for word, so use the link to hear the exact words, or the transcript link for the raw text. Timestamps: 5 cross-checked against YouTube captions, 11 from the archive transcript only. X has no link-to-time option, so X links open at the start.
How the answer evolved · oldest first
Nov 9, 2023 · Lex Fridman Podcast · asked by Lex Fridman
Q: What are some interesting tiny or big things you've understood?
I was surprised at the fact that we had to develop every part of the robot ourselves, that there were no off the shelf motors, electronics, sensors, like we had to develop everything. We couldn't actually find a source of electric motors for any amount of money.
Apr 23, 2024 · Tesla Q1 2024 earnings call · asked by Martin Viecha (IR)
Q: When do you expect to start mass production?
We are able to do simple factory tasks, or at least I should say factory tasks in the lab. Actually we do think we will have Optimus in limited production in the factory, in the actual factory itself, doing useful tasks before the end of this year.
Jul 13, 2024 · X Takeover 2024 · asked by Kelvin (Tesla Owners Silicon Valley)
Q: Elon, what are you going to use your robot for?
Oh, I mean, initially we're so we're starting like production unit 1 of production design 1 of Optimus, which will, we'll do some basic stuff in the factory, in the Tesla factories next year because we want to iron out a lot of details. It's just to make sure it's useful. And for the first year or so it's going to require quite a lot of babysitting from engineering. And then hopefully when we get to 2026, that'll be …
Jul 23, 2024 · Tesla Q2 2024 earnings call · asked by Travis Axelrod
Q: The next question is what type of accessories will be offered with Optimus?
There's. Optimus is intended to be a generalized humanoid robot with a lot of intelligence. So it's like saying what kind of accessories would be offered with a human. It's really intended to be able to be backwards compatible with human tasks. So it would use any accessories that a human would use. Yeah. Thank you.
Sep 8, 2024 · All-In Summit · asked by Jason Calacanis
Q: I mean it's going to be that 1 to 1, 2 to 1. What do you think?
Yeah, I think the number of robots will vastly exceed the number of humans. I mean, you have to say, like, who. Who would not want their robot buddy? Everyone wants a robot buddy. This is like, especially if it can, you know. It can take care of your. Take your dog for a walk. It could mow the lawn, it could watch your kids. It could like, it could teach your kids. It could.
Jan 29, 2025 · Tesla Q4 and full year 2024 earnings call · asked by Travis Axelrod
Q: The next question is, is Optimus now mostly Design locked for 2025 production?
Optimus is not design locked. So when I say like we're designing the train as it's going to, we're redesigning between us going down the tracks while redesigning the tracks and the train stations. Yeah, it's rapidly evolving. It's rapidly evolving in a good direction. It's pretty damn amazing actually. Team's doing a fantastic job. We really have by far, I think by far the best team of humanoid robotics engineers in …
Apr 22, 2025 · Tesla Q1 2025 earnings call · asked by Travis Axelrod
Q: Additionally, how might the recent tariffs impact the scalability of this production line moving forward?
Optimus, I just want to emphasize Optimus is still very much a development program. It's not a, it's not a large volume production. That's fine. This year we'll make a few that we do expect to make thousands of Optimus robots, but most of that production is going to be at the end of the year. So the, almost everything in Optimus is new. There's not like an existing supply chain for the motors, gearboxes, …
Sep 7, 2025 · All-In Summit · asked by Host
Q: And the cost of it, at scale, 20, 30, $40,000 a robot, what do you think the first wave of them will cost and when will we be able to buy one to work on the ranch?
I think that the module cost of production, once you hit a million units per year is probably around the $20,000 range. It sort of depends on how much you spend on the AI chip in the robot. And you need to achieve a lot of efficiencies in the actuators. There are 26 actuators per arm, like 26 electric like motors, gearboxes and power electronics. So, but the AI chip will be pretty expensive like that might be like 5 …
Nov 14, 2025 · Baron Investment Conference · asked by Ron Baron
Q: How are we going to have a billion of them when we have 8 billion people? How really?
Look, it's going to take us a minute to make a billion robots. So larger, very significant. But I think there will ultimately be billions of humanoid robots on it. A way to think of it is who on earth not want their own personal R2D2T3PO like pretty much everyone's even better, like your personal health and funny robot. It would be great. You could teach your kids, take your dog for a walk, get the groceries chat …
Jan 6, 2026 · Moonshots · asked by Peter Diamandis
Q: Will you sell or only lease the robots, you think?
I don't know yet. There will be initially a scarcity of robots and then there will be. Robots will be plentiful. So yeah, but the difference, the time gap between scarce and plentiful will be only a matter of five years.
Jan 22, 2026 · Davos · asked by Larry Fink
Q: How quickly can they be utilized and be functional and be create that abundance that you talked about?
Well, humanoid robotics will advance very quickly. I think. We do have some Tesla Optimus robots doing simple tasks in the factory, except probably later this year. By the end of this year I think they'll be doing more complex tasks, but still deployed in an industrial environment. And probably sometimes next year. I'd say by the end of next year I think we'd be selling humanoid robots to the Public, that's when we …
Mar 18, 2026 · Abundance Summit · asked by Peter Diamandis
Q: When do you expect Optimus to go into commercial for commercial sale or will you be leasing it?
Well, we're in the final stages of completion of Optimus 3, which is really going to be by far the most advanced robot in the world. Nothing's even close.
Apr 22, 2026 · Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call · asked by Travis Axelrod
Q: And then what's the expected Optimus production rate exiting this year and what are the initial targeted skills?
Well, as I was saying, what we found is that when we've unveiled various Optus versions, we've Optimus versions, we found out how competitors literally do a frame by frame analysis and copy everything we're doing. So I think we want to push the Optimus 3 unveil maybe closer to production. Startup production is, we're assuming is
Jul 23, 2026 · The Economist: Interview with Elon Musk · asked by Zanny Minton Beddoes
Q: Or are you producing goods and services with the humanoid robots that you control?
I think I would probably be. It would be an exercise in vanity for me to think that I would be controlling super genius AI that is vastly smarter than me. I think what we can and should try to do is to make sure that the AI has good values, that it cares about humanity and that it wants us to be happy and prosperity. I think it probably will be. My what my Biological neural net tells me is that the most important …
Sep 1, 2026 · G20 Innovation Ministerial Summit: Remarks in North Carolina · asked by Moderator
Q: So how quickly do you think these changes are happening in the sort of physical AI world?
Yeah, so anything physical always takes longer than anything, which is digital. Digital. When you solve something digitally, it's the software that you can easily copy across other computers. When it's physical, you've got to build up an entire massive supply chain. You've got to move a lot of atoms. And supply chains are very much global at this point. So that's why it takes longer. Nonetheless, when you think of …
Oct 10, 2026 · X Takeover 2026 · asked by Co-host (Tesla Owners Silicon Valley)
Q: What kind of breakthroughs that you have seen Inside Tesla with V3 and then follow up question is, what gives you confidence that Optimus can lead in humanoid robots compared to Boston Dynamics Figure and some of the other competitors out …
So the thing about humanoid robot design, if you're actually trying to make something that is a generalized humanoid robot that can do, say anything that a person can do, you really have to get the hands and arms like the fine motor skills are incredibly difficult to get right. Shockingly difficult. Things that we kind of take for granted, like being able to sign your name actually requires picking up a pen or …
In his own posts on X
@elonmusk · Nov 26, 2024
@PeterDiamandis Optimus is a very sophisticated robot. It will be immensely difficult to get the cost to $20k. Not easy at all, but it will eventually happen. Production volume needs to be above 1M/year for that. Price will be driven by demand, but eventually even price will get to ~$20k.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · May 16, 2025
@Teslarati Not correct. We are building a production line to enable 1000/month Optimus production, but that is still many months away.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Jul 1, 2026
@DoctorJack16 No, Optimus production will be extremely slow at first, as everything is new. This is not like making a car.
View on X ↗
Legend: Timestamp cross-checked; Timestamp from archive, not cross-checked; Unverified: caption-only timestamp; Timestamp checked against our transcript of the X replay; Unverified timestamp: from archive transcript, not checked against the X video. Report an error →