“Optimus will eliminate poverty and provide universal high income for all.” Elon Musk
Austin, Texas – I’ve listened to Elon Musk talk about the future more times than I can count, but something hit different in the last couple of weeks.
First on November 19 in Washington DC with Jensen Huang, then again on November 30 with Nikhil Kamath, he kept circling back to the same quiet, almost casual prediction: once we have truly useful humanoid robots, material poverty simply ceases to exist. Not “gets better.” Not “shrinks.” It ends.
He told Jensen that the moment these bots cost less than a decent used car and can do any physical job faster and better than any human, and every household will likely own several. The math is brutal and beautiful: one $20–30k Optimus, working 24 hours a day for decades, will create orders of magnitude more value than it costs. It is easy to understand how goods and services will collapse toward the price of electricity and raw materials.
And then he said the line that made me tear up thinking of my friend with her garden greenhouse:
“People will still grow vegetables… but only because they enjoy it.” Elon Musk
Instantly I thought of my friend Johnna Crider in Louisiana. She already spends half her weekends elbow-deep in raised beds, in her greenhouse, harvesting peppers and tomatoes not because she has to, but because the smell of the soil and the taste of a home grown and ground spice mix in her mouth is pure joy. One day soon, that choice will be universal. No one will ever again plant a garden out of necessity.
Same with me standing at the sink after a rough day, my favorite cotton lined gloves up to my elbows, washing dishes in lemon scented bubbly water while enjoying my fav podcast. I do it to unwind, to feel something simple and physical. Elon says that will become optional too. So will me grinding beans from my favorite little Austin roaster every morning just because the smell makes the whole house feel like home.
Work itself? Optional. Money as we know it? Eventually meaningless.
He told Nikhil that Optimus may start shipping to homes in real numbers in 10-15 years. When that happens, he said softly, “poverty simply won’t be able to survive in that world.”
I believe Elon.
For the first time in human history, we’re not talking about lifting people out of poverty. We’re talking about a world so abundant that poverty can’t even take root.
And honestly? I’m going to miss the excuse to wear my deluxe gloves and grind my own Texas coffee at 6 a.m. But I’ll take the trade. Maybe we will choose to spend more time on our gardens and serving up our own coffee for our family and friends.
Johnna’s aloe vera garden and coffee brewed by hand.
Imagine threading through Bay Area rush-hour traffic without white-knuckling the wheel on 101, or letting a robot handle the laundry while you catch the sunset at Big Sur. Picture dropping the kids at school in Austin and knowing the car just saved them the way it saved Clifford Lee last month on a foggy New Mexico highway.
Tesla isn’t just building electric cars anymore—it’s creating the AI and robotics platform that could make driving safer and chores optional for every American family.
At the center are two breakthroughs: Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised and the Optimus humanoid robot, both powered by Tesla’s end-to-end neural networks and custom inference chips.
Full Self-Driving: Already Saving Lives on American Roads
FSD uses cameras, neural networks, and Tesla’s in-house hardware to steer, brake, change lanes, and park—with a human always ready to take over. In early November 2025, Tesla shareholder Clifford Lee was driving his Model Y home from the shareholder meeting when a wrong-way driver barreled toward him at 75 mph in thick fog. Lee never saw the headlights. FSD did—and swerved onto the shoulder in time. “It saved my life,” he said.
Tesla’s latest data: one crash per roughly 6.47 billion autonomous miles—about seven times safer than the U.S. average.
In California and Texas, where millions already drive with FSD, the next leap is unsupervised autonomy. Tesla is pushing for approvals state-by-state, with Texas and California expected to lead in 2026. Soon, hands-off commutes from Palo Alto to San Francisco or Austin to Round Rock could be everyday reality.
Optimus: The Robot That Could Make Work Optional
At the November 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting in Texas, a completely untethered Optimus danced on stage to a standing ovation. Elon called it “potentially the biggest product ever… bigger than the smartphone” and said fleets of Optimus will one day build bases on the Moon and Mars—working side-by-side with Cybertrucks made right down the road in Austin.
Timeline –> hitting American homes and factories first:
Limited internal use by late 2025
Sales to U.S. companies throughout 2026
High-volume consumer models from 2027
From Fremont and Giga Texas, the rollout starts here.
Powering it all is Tesla’s AI5 inference chip, dozens of times more efficient than today’s hardware, with volume production ramping mid-2027.
Elon has already floated building a dedicated “TeraFab” to keep up with demand that he says will be “essentially infinite.”
A Future Where Poverty Becomes Optional
On November 19, 2025, Elon told the U.S.–Saudi Investment Forum: “I imagine robots will actually eliminate poverty… Work will become optional for humans, and money will stop being relevant.”
That future isn’t science fiction anymore — it’s being built today in Fremont, Austin, and soon in living rooms across America. Tesla already employs over 70,000 people in California and Texas alone. The coming wave of AI and robotics will create thousands more high-paying jobs in software, training, and maintenance right here at home, while Optimus takes over the dangerous, dull, or physically crushing work that too many Americans still do every day.
Skepticism is fair. We’ve heard big promises before. But when FSD is already saving lives on American highways and Optimus prototypes are walking around the Tesla engineering offices in Palo Alto, the future isn’t coming from overseas, it is being built right here, by us, for us.
Embrace it, and America won’t just ride the AI wave, we will keep leading it.
The author had a front row seat at the Tesla shareholder meeting on Nov 6, 2025.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Elon Musk talked to a full audience at the Saudi Investment Forum and millions watched online. This is my transcript of his talk in the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center. My piece honors Elon’s statements for technical clarity and I hope you’ll be inspired!
AI and Robotics: Engineering the Future
When we think about Elon’s work to advance robotics and AI, many of us can see a paradigm shift in automation and intelligence, with implications for building at scale, a new economic model, and the need for a new and abundant meaning for life.
Optimus Robots: Functional Autonomy
Elon detailed the capabilities of Tesla’s Optimus bot, emphasizing practical applications. “We just showed several of our Tesla Optimus robots to His Highness and President Trump. I think they were very impressed. In fact, one of our robots did the Trump dance, which I think was pretty cool. The YMCA dance. So, yeah, very impressed robots can dance, they can walk around, they can interact,” he said.
Economic Scalability Through Robotics and a Non Dystopian Future
Elon projects a transformative economy from widespread humanoid robot adoption.
“My prediction for humanoid robots is that ultimately there will be tens of billions. I think everyone will want to have their personal robot. You can think of it as if you had your own personal C3PO or R2D2 or even better. Who wouldn’t want to have their own personal C3PO or R2D2, that would be pretty great. I also think it unlocks an immense amount of economic potential because when you think about… what is the output of an economy, it is productivity per capita times the population per capita. Once you have humanoid robots, the actual economic output potential is tremendous. It is really unlimited. Potentially we could have an economy ten times the size of the global economy where no one wants for anything. You know, sometimes in AI they talk about universal basic income, I think it is actually going to be universal high income. It is where anyone can have any goods or services that they want. A science fiction book recommendation that I recommend which I think has probably the best envision of an AI future is the Culture Books by Iain Banks. Very highly recommended for a non dystopian view of the future.”
Elon: A science fiction book recommendation that I recommend which I think has probably the best envision of an AI future is the Culture Books by Iain Banks. Very highly recommended for a non dystopian view of the future.
I think this model will win as it is being created with with manufacturing at scale in mind. This is no fancy one off prototype.
xAI: Truth-Seeking Intelligence
Elon’s xAI plans to target fundamental questions about the universe.
“xAI is just trying to solve general purpose artificial intelligence. The goal with xAI is to have a maximally truth seeking AI, and it is important to be a maximally truth seeking AI in order to understand the universe,” he said. “The goal of xAI is to understand the universe. To understand what is out there? Where is the universe going? Where did it come from? I think maybe the biggest thing is, What questions do we NOT know to ask? Once you know the question, the answer is usually the easy part. And so, the goal of xAI is to help understand the universe and help people answer any questions along the way. That’s my philosophy. My philosophy is one of curiosity, just trying to understand the nature of reality.”
Infrastructure and Mobility: Redefining Systems
Elon’s Boring Company is totally under-represented. So, he does a great job of repping it after talking about Robotaxi!
Autonomous Vehicles: Robotaxi
Elon proposed Robotaxi for the Kindom of Saudi Arabia. “You can think of future cars as being robots on four wheels. I think it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the Kingdom, if you are amenable,” he said.
Elon: I think it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the Kingdom, if you are amenable. Image courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
The Boring Company: 3D Urban Solutions
Elon’s sees a future without brain numbing traffic.
“I have something that may be worth considering, it is tunnels. I have this company called The Boring Company, which sounds kinda boring, but it literally bores tunnels and actually in order to solve traffic, you really need to go 3D with roads and by using tunnels and you essentially create like a wormhole, like a warp tunnel from one part of a city to another and alleviate traffic and we’re actually already done this proof of concept in Las Vegas. There are working tunnels in Vegas that you can use where it feels like teleporting from one part of Vegas to another. My joke is like, tunnels are under-appreciated,” he said.
Cybertruck in Vegas Loop. Image Courtesy of the Boring Company
Elon graciously thanked the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their support for Starlink and addressed risks of AI. “I’d also like to thank the Kingdom for approving Starlink for maritime and aviation use. Thank you,” he said, highlighting the expansion of satellite-based connectivity for remote applications. On AI risks, Elon noted:
“There obviously are some risks, which illustrate that if you don’t do this right, you could have like a James Cameron sort of movie, Terminator. We don’t want that one, but having sort of a Star Trek future would be great. We’re out there exploring stars, discovering the nature of universe & prosperity and hopefully happiness that we can’t quite imagine yet. So, I am very excited about the future.”
In 2025, Starlink Maritime offers high-speed, low-latency internet access for boats and ships globally, with a shift towards tiered data plans instead of unlimited options, and specialized hardware designed for the marine environment.
My thoughts
My first thought was that Elon’s talk was too short. The brief time he had also gives us a quick look into where he’s at now. He did not discuss DOGE during his talk, but focused on his companies, the heart of the abundant future we all look forward to. In my closing comments on this article, I urge you (again) to support people having kids, and you, if you can. Underpopulation continues to be a threat to humanity, with no real fix in sight, so consider being a parent even against all odds. I have five kids and am neither “wealthy” nor poor. I’m just a regular person, like you probably are. My kids are happy, glad to enjoy life, and a blessing to everyone they meet. Despite people telling me not to have kids, or even a doctor telling me to terminate one of the pregnancies because I was “too old” to have a child at age 46, I had kids anyway. No regrets, only thanks. Bless you. Live your life to the fullest and never give up!
🚨 BREAKING: Elon Musk's Full Interview from the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum today. pic.twitter.com/6Yyt34vBKP
“I see a path. I’m not saying it’s an easy path but I see a path of Tesla being the most valuable company in the world by far.” – Elon Musk
In this article we’ll look at how Tesla’s value is immense, as what Tesla is building will improve efficiency in all areas of human life, and do it at scale, making it affordable. Elon Musk outlined much of this is in this Shareholder meeting, so although he did not make mention of Master Plan 3, this was a big progress report on Master Plan 3.
Elon’s conversation focused on manufacturing at scale, AI, and robotics. Note: This is the January 29, 2025, Tesla Annual Shareholder Earnings Call.
Elon is More that Doubling Investments in Tesla
“Doubling is not even enough. We made many critical investments in 2024 in manufacturing, AI and robotics that will bear immense fruit in the future.” – Elon Musk
When discussing Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, Elon emphasized its market impact, saying, “I think the interest level from other manufacturers to license FSD will be extremely high once it is obvious that unless you have FSD, you’re dead.”
The Misconception of Easy Production vs. the Reality
Elon: “Yeah, prototypes are trivial basically. Prototypes are easy, production is there for many years. The problem is there’s like those who have never been involved in production or manufacturing somehow think that may — once you come up with some eureka design, that you magically can make 1 million units a year, and this is totally false. There needs to be some Hollywood story or where they show actually the problem is manufacturing.”
Hollywood Does Not Make Movies Like This, But They Should
Elon: “I’ve never even heard of one (Hollywood story that shows how to win at manufacturing). It just doesn’t fit the narrative. The Hollywood thing is like some lone inventor in a garage goes EUREKA! And suddenly, it files a patent, and suddenly, there’s millions of units. And like I’m listening to the guys, we’re missing really 99% of the story. One percent is — a product is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. Hollywood shows you the 1% inspiration and minus — but forgets about the 99% perspiration of actually figuring out how to make that initial prototype manufacturable and then manufacture at high volume such as reliable, low cost, consistent, and doesn’t break down all the time and that is 100 times more difficult at least than the prototype.”
Austin, Texas Will Experience Unsupervised Full Self-Driving as a Paid Service in June
“In fact, it could drive you. It’s a self-driving wolf.” – Elon Musk
Elon’s timeline was a surprise for many, as he plans to initially launch unsupervised FSD in Austin in June. For me personally, it makes sense. I live in Austin, use FSD everyday, it works astonishingly well!
“We’re going to be launching unsupervised full self-driving as a paid service in Austin in June.” – Elon Musk
Elon: “And I am like — setting up for what I think will be an epic 2026 and a ridiculous ’27 and ’28, ridiculously good. That is my prediction. As you know, very few people understand the value of self-driving and our ability to monetize the fleet. Some of these things I’ve said for quite a long time, and I know people have said, Well, Elon, the boy who cried like a wolf like several times. But I’m telling you, there’s a damn wolf this time and you can drive it. In fact, it could drive you. It’s a self-driving wolf.
For a lot of people, like their experience of Tesla Autonomy is like if it’s even a year old, if it’s even two years old, it’s like meeting someone when they’re like a toddler and thinking that they’re going to be a toddler forever. But obviously not going to be a toddler forever. They grow up. But if their last experience was like, Oh, FSD was a toddler. It’s like, well, it’s grown up now. Have you seen it? It’s like walks and talks. And that’s really what we’ve got.
And it’s difficult for people to understand this because human intuition is linear as opposed to what we’re seeing is exponential progress. So, that’s why my No. 1 recommendation for anyone who doubts is simply try it. Have you tried it? When’s the last time you tried it? And the only people who are skeptical, the only people who are skeptical are those who have not tried it.”
When addressing a question about discussions with other auto companies regarding the licensing of Tesla’s FSD, Elon explained there is interest.
Interest in Tesla’s Autonomous Tech
Elon: “Yeah. What we’re seeing is at this point, significant interest from a number of major car companies about licensing Tesla full self-driving technology.”
Analyzing Tesla’s Hardware
Elon: “What we’ve generally said is the best way to know what to do is take one of our cars apart. And then you can see where the placement of the cameras are, what the thermal needs are of the Tesla AI inference computer.”
Optimus Development Timeline
Elon: “With regard to Optimus, obviously, I’m making these revenue predictions that sound absolutely insane, I realize that. But they are — I think they will prove to be accurate. Now with Optimus, there’s a lot of uncertainty on the exact timing because it’s not like a train arriving at the station for Optimus. We are designing the train at the station and in real time while also building the tracks.”
Production Goals for Optimus:
Elon: “The normal internal plan calls for roughly 10,000 Optimus robots to be built this year. Will we succeed in building 10,000 exactly by the end of December this year? Probably not, but will we succeed in making several thousand? Yes, I think we will. Will those several thousand Optimus robots be doing useful things by the end of the year? Yes, I’m confident they will do useful things.”
Feedback Loop for Optimus Development
Elon: “Those Optimus in use at the Tesla factories for production design 1 will inform how we will change for production design 2, which we expect to launch next year.”
The Immense Scaling of Optimus
Elon: “And our goal is to ramp up Optimus production faster than maybe anything has ever been ramped, meaning like aspirationally in order of magnitude, ramp per year. Now if we aspire to an order of magnitude ramp per year, perhaps, we only end up with a half order of magnitude per year. But that’s the kind of growth that we’re talking about. It doesn’t take very many years before we’re making 100 million of these things a year if you go up by let’s say, a factor by 5x per year.”
How Tesla Solved Challenges in Developing Optimus
Elon: “But we do need to be — this is an entirely new supply chain, it’s entirely new technology. There’s nothing off the shelf to use. We tried desperately with Optimus to use any existing motors or any actuators, sensors. Nothing worked for a humanoid robot at any price.”
Custom Design for Optimus
Elon: “We had to design everything from physics-first principles to work for a humanoid robot and with the most sophisticated hand that has ever been made before by far. Optimus will be also able to play the piano and be able to thread a needle. I mean, this is the level of precision no one has been able to achieve. And so, it’s really something special.”
Future Value of Optimus to Tesla
Elon: “So, yes. And my prediction, long term, is that Optimus will be overwhelmingly the value of the company.”
Additional Statements on Optimus
Elon: “Optimus is not design-locked. So, let’s say like we’re designing the train as it’s going to — we’re redesigning the train as it’s going down the tracks while redesigning the tracks and the train stations.”
Vision for Optimus
Elon: “I’d like it to be the beginning of next year but maybe it’s more like the middle of next year,” (referring to the launch of an enhanced version of Optimus)
Elon: “The current line that we’re designing is for roughly 1,000 units a month of Optimus robots. The next line would be for 10,000 units a month. The line after that would be for 100,000 units a month.”
Elon: “I think probably with Version 2, it is a very rough guess because there’s so much uncertainty here, very rough guess that we start delivering Optimus robots to companies that are outside of Tesla in maybe the second half of next year, something like that.”
Elon: “But like I said, this is such an exponential ramp that it will go from no one’s receiving humanoid robots to these things like coming out like crazy. We can’t build enough. We’re always going to be in the — we can’t build enough situation. Demand will not be a problem even at a high price.”
Elon: “And then I said like, once we start — once we’re at a steady state of above 1 million units a year, I think the production — I’m confident at 1 million units a year, that the production cost of Optimus will be less than $20,000.”
Elon: “If you compare the complexity of Optimus to the complexity of a car, so just the total mass and complexity of Optimus is much less than a car. So, I would expect that at similar volumes to say the Model Y, which is over 1 million units a year, that you’d see Optimus be, I don’t know, half the cost or something like that.”
Elon: “What the price of Optimus is a different matter. The price of Optimus will be set by the market demand.”
Utility of Autonomous Cars
“Once that car is autonomous, my rough estimate is that it is in use for at least a third of the hours per week, so call it, 50, maybe 55 hours of the week.” – Elon Musk
Current Utilization of Passenger Cars
Elon: “So, a car goes — a passenger car typically has only about 10 hours of utility per week out of 168, a very small percentage.”
Projected Increase in Car Utility with Autonomy
Elon: “Once that car is autonomous, my rough estimate is that it is in use for at least a third of the hours per week, so call it, 50, maybe 55 hours of the week. And it can be used for both cargo delivery and people delivery. So, even, let’s say, people are asleep but you can deliver packages in the middle of the night or resupply restaurants or whatever the case may be, whatever people need at all hours of the day or night.”
Economic Impact of Autonomous Vehicles
Elon: “That same asset, the thing that — these things that already exist with no incremental cost change, just a software update, now have five times or more the utility than they currently have. I think this will be the largest asset value increase in human history. Maybe there’s something bigger but I just don’t know what it is. And so, people who would look in the rearview mirror are looking for past precedent, except I don’t think there is one.”
Everyone Should Try Autonomous Driving
Elon: “So, look, the reality of autonomy is upon us. And I repeat my advice, try driving the car or let it drive you. So, now it works very well in the U.S., but of course, it will, over time, work just as well everywhere else.”
Tesla’s Growth Plans: Batteries
Elon: “Yes, so we’re working hard to grow our annual volumes. Our current constraint is battery packs this year but we’re working on addressing that constraint. And I think we will make progress in addressing that constraint. And then things are really going to go ballistic next year and really ballistic in ’27 and ’28.”
Advancement in Full-Self-Driving (FSD) Technology
Elon: “So, a bit more on full-self-driving. Our Q4 vehicle safety report shows continued year-over-year improvement in safety for vehicles. So, the safety numbers, if somebody has supervised full self-driving turned on or not, the safety differences are gigantic. And people have seen the immense improvement with Version 13, and with incremental versions in Version 13 and 14 is going to be yet another step beyond that, that is very significant. We launched the Cortex training cluster at Gigafactory Austin, which was a significant contributor to FSD advancement.”
Training Infrastructure for AI/Optimus Development
Elon: “And we continue to invest in training infrastructure out of Texas headquarters. So, the training needs for Optimus humanoid robot, are probably at least ultimately 10x of what is needed for the car, at least to get to the full range of useful role. You can say like how many different roles are there for a humanoid robot versus a car? A humanoid robot has probably 1,000 times more uses and more complex things than in a car. That doesn’t mean the training scales by 1,000 but it’s probably at 10x.”
Economic Potential of Optimus Robots
Elon: “Now you can do this progressively, so it doesn’t mean like Tesla’s going to spend like $500 billion in training computer because we will obviously train Optimus to do enough tasks to match the output of robots. And obviously, the cost of training is dropping dramatically with time. But it’s one of those things where I think long-term, Optimus has the potential to be north of $10 trillion in revenue, like it’s really bananas. So, that you can obviously afford a lot of training compute in that situation.”
Investment vs. Revenue in AI Training
Elon: “In fact, even $500 billion training compute in that situation will be quite a good deal. Yes, the future is going to be incredibly different from the past, that’s for sure. We live at this unbelievable inflection point in human history.”
Proof of Concept for Unsupervised FSD
Elon: “So, yes, so the proof is in the pudding. So, we’re going to be launching unsupervised full self-driving as a paid service in Austin in June. So, I talked to the team. We feel confident in being able to do an initial launch of unsupervised, no one in the car, full self-driving in Austin in June. We already have Teslas operating autonomously unsupervised full self-driving at our factory in Fremont, and we’ll soon be doing that at our factory in Texas.”
Operational Details of Autonomous Vehicles at Factories
Elon: “So, thousands of cars every day are driving with no one in them at our Fremont factory in California, that we’ll soon be doing that in Austin and then elsewhere in the world, the rest of our factories, which is pretty cool. And the cars aren’t just driving to exactly the same spot because, obviously, they want to collide at the same spot. The cars are actually programmed with where — with what lane they need to park into to be picked up for delivery. So, the drive from the factory end of line to their destination parking spot and to be picked up for delivery to customers and then doing this reliably every day, thousands of times a day.”
Timeline for Unsupervised FSD in Public
Elon: “It’s pretty cool. Like I said, these Teslas will be in the wild with no one in them in June in Austin. So, what I’m saying is this is not some far-off mythical situation. It’s literally five, six months away, five months away kind of thing.
Approach to Safety and Expansion
Elon: “And while we’re stepping — putting our toe in the water gently at first just to make sure everything is cool, our solution, our sort of solution is a generalized AI solution. It does not require high precision maps of locality. So, we just want to be cautious. It’s not that it doesn’t work beyond Austin. In fact, it does. We just want to put our toe in the water, make sure everything is OK, then put a few more toes in the water, then put a foot in the water with safety of the general public as and those in the car as our top priority.”
Energy Storage as a Critical Asset
Elon: “Regarding energy, energy storage is a big deal and will become — really super important, will become incredibly important in the future. And it is something that enables far greater energy output to the grid than is currently possible because the grids are — the vast majority of the grid has no energy storage capability.”
Impact of Energy Storage on Grid Efficiency
Elon: “So, they have to design the power plants for very high peaks and assuming that there’s no energy storage. Once you have grid energy storage and home-based energy storage, the actual total energy output per year of the grid is dramatically greater than people think. Maybe it’s at least double. This will drive the demand of stationary battery packs and especially the grid-scale ones to and saying basically as much demand as we can possibly make.”
Tesla’s Expansion of Big Battery Production: Shanghai and Another 3rd Factory
Elon: “So, we have our second factory, which is in Shanghai, that’s starting operation, and we’re building a third factory. So, we’re trying to ramp output of the stationary battery storage as quickly as possible.”
Balancing Battery Demand Between Sectors
Elon: “Now there is a challenge here where we have to be careful — that were not robbing from 1 pocket to take to another pocket because for a given gigawatt hours per year of the cell output, does it go into stationary applications or mobile applications? It can’t go both into both so we have to make that trade-off, yes. But overall, the demand for total gigawatt hours of batteries, whether mobile or stationary, that will grow in a very, very big way over time.
For context, Tesla navigates between:
Stationary Applications: These include batteries for energy storage solutions that support homes, businesses, and the grid, particularly vital for managing renewable energy sources like solar and wind, which produce energy intermittently.
Mobile Applications: Here, the focus is on electric vehicles, where batteries are essential for vehicle operation, directly impacting Tesla’s automotive business.
Elon metaphorically described the situation as “robbing from one pocket to take to another,” emphasizing the need for strategy to ensure neither sector suffers from resource scarcity. The decision on where to allocate batteries involves complex trade-offs based on current market demand, potential profitability, and strategic long-term goals.
Significance of 2025 in Tesla’s Timeline
Speaking of the year 2025, Elon said “In fact, I think it probably will be viewed ’25 as maybe the most important year in Tesla’s history.
Tesla’s Dominance in Real-World AI
Elon: “There is no company in the world that is as good in real-world AI as Tesla. I don’t even know who’s in second place. Like you say, like, who’s in the second place for real-world AI? I would need a very big telescope to see them. That’s how far behind they are.”
Tesla’s Q4 and Full Year Earnings Calls from 2021, 2022, 2023 by Gail Alfar
Elon Musk installed a giant 30ft fork in the road created by Burning Man artist Hunter Leggitt outside the Autopilot office in Palo Alto, will this be a permanent art installation? Tesla’s Optimus robot is already working at the Fremont factory, and exactly how many robots are in Tesla’s fleet?
This article asks these questions and covers:
The giant fork in the road
What Optimus can do, jobs, other fun stuff
Optimus will be safe
GIANT FORK IN THE ROAD
Fork in the Road at AI Day 2022, credit Chuck Cook
Hunter Leggitt studios created “MetaFork in the Road,” a whimsical 30-foot tall and 4,500 lbs steel installation representing the classic metaphor for a deciding moment in life when a choice between presented options is required. The artwork may be planned for permanent installation at Tesla Bay Area Autopilot / A.I. Division in Palo Alto. You can learn more about the art here.
“I love the inverse poetry of making metaphors literal There is a giant 30ft (literal) fork in the road outside the Autopilot office in Palo Alto” Elon Musk
UPDATE: On October 10, Elon Musk tweeted that he commissioned the art piece, “It was built & paid for at my request. Hunter & team did great work.” This article was cited in Teslarati.
You and I are living in an age of transition, at the time of the giant fork in the road. Most people today did not grow up with smartphones, but now we use smartphones every day. We did not grow up with robotaxis, and in the future, they will be commonplace. The same goes for Optimus, none of us consider daily life normal with the robot yet, but one day we may, if we choose that path.
What amazed me about AI Day 2022 was that Tesla’s Optimus prototype has a brain and is working in the Fremont factory. It is significant that Optimus was shown doing jobs. This included watering plants, delivering packages, and at a Fremont factory workstation moving parts.
In the live demo at Tesla Palo Alto, Optimus sees the audience and just knows that he is supposed to walk out to the middle of the stage and when he sees a crowd of people he knows that he should wave. When the music was playing, Optimus just knew it was okay to dance.
One day this good-humored Optimus will help us inside our houses cleaning, and in the meantime, priority will go to having the robots work in Tesla’s Fremont factory.
“Our goal with Optimus is to have a robot that is maximumly useful as quickly as possible. So there’s a lot of ways to solve the various problems of a humanoid robot.
We want to pick something that’s going to allow us to produce the robot as quickly as possible, to be useful as quickly as possible, we’re trying to follow the goal of fastest path to a useful robot that can be made at volume and we’re going to test the robot internally at Tesla in our factory and just see, like how useful is it?
Because you’re going to close the loop on reality to confirm that the robot is in fact useful.” – Elon Musk
If Tesla bots are indeed useful in the factory, then will they eventually work in other Tesla factories? Giga Texas, Giga Shanghai, and Giga Berlin could benefit from employing Tesla bots. Tesla also operates ~13 production facilities around the world including Gigafactory Nevada.
Optimus’ prototype was built in ~ 6 months. The aesthetic design of Optimus that Tesla will mass produce has design undertones from Tesla’s Cybertruck. One of the features I appreciate is that the pieces do not look intimidating, rather they look beautiful and artistic. The robot above that is shown with Elon Musk wears a Giga Texas Tesla belt buckle. This led me to write an article titled “Don’t Mess with Tesla Bot” for Scentwedge creator Arash Malek.
Elon Musk describes a futuristic scenario that includes different types of Optimus,
“I think we want to have really fun versions of Optimus, so that Optimus can both be utilitarian and do tasks but can also be kind of like a friend and a buddy and hang out with you.
I’m sure people will think of all sorts of creative uses for this robot. Once you have the core intelligence and actuators figured out, then you can put all sorts of costumes on the robot.
I mean you can make the robot many different ways and I’m sure people will find many interesting ways.” – Elon Musk
I’m excited to see Tesla develop Optimus to do many roles within the factory. I think Tesla could modify the robot to work in different situations in the factory. For example, the greenskeeper Optimus that goes around and waters the plants should look different from the foundrybot Optimus that works placing ingots into the melting furnace.
A humorous quote was written into the design of the wristband at AI Day, which said,
“IF YOU CAN RUN FASTER THAN 5MPH, YOU’RE FINE.”
The term owning and Optimus does not sound quite right to Elon Musk, and I agree. We wouldn’t want a society where Optimus is thought of as our property or slave, that is too reminiscent of the dystopian, science-fiction movies where slaves are oppressed and treated horribly. Rather there should be a concept of kindness towards Optimus because it is not something that humans program, it’s something that will have its own brain, and in a limited way.
For people who drive their Tesla on Autopilot, you just know that at any moment you can completely take over control of the car. You do this by pressing on the brakes, tugging on the steering wheel or tapping on the stalk in your car. You might not want a robot that just stops functioning only because someone taps on it. Optimus will have a deactivation receiving signal and Tesla is developing this for our safety, in the rare situation that Optimus is found doing something that would be harmful to himself or humans.
There are a few unanswered questions. How many Optimus is already produced and working? Or, how big is the current Optimus fleet? Where and when will manufacturing at scale start? Elon Musk explained that Optimus could help humans move into an age of abundance. So although we are facing a crisis of underpopulation, the lucky people that will be alive into the future will be enjoying an incredible life. That means, if you have children, their children, and grandchildren, will be living in an age of abundance.
“The potential really boggles the mind, because you have to say what is an economy?
An economy is sort of productive entities times their productivity.
Capita times output, productivity per capita. But the point at which there’s not a limitation on capita, it’s not clear what an economy even means at that point!
Economy becomes quasi-infinite. So, taken to fruition, in the hopefully benign scenario, this means a future of abundance.
A future where there is no poverty. Where people, you can have whatever you want in terms of products and services.
It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it.” - Elon Musk
CONCLUSION
Optimus is already working in the Tesla Fremont factory, it is unknown how large the fleet of robots are there, and it is significant that the robot can do jobs such as water plants, deliver packages and function at a workstation
Optimus’ prototype design wears a “Don’t Mess with Tesla” belt buckle and has design undertones from Tesla’s Cybertruck
All Tesla’s products are built with safety in mind and Optimus is no different! The robot will have many safety measures and one humorous one is that, “If you can run faster than 5 mph, you’re fine!”
A giant 30-foot fork in the road stands as a monumental symbol at Autopilot office in Palo Alto and is planned for permanent installation, according to Hunter Leggitt Studio website
Read Elon Musk’s essay on technology for a better future Elon Musk is optimistic, lives with a sense of urgency, and takes action to make the future good. His essay is an inspiration to all people, and here he talks about exciting uses for the Optimus humanoid robot!
Who will Benefit once Tesla Autonomy is Solved? I believe a world where autonomy is the norm is closer than we realize. This article attempts to answer the question, who will benefit once Tesla autonomy is solved?
Credit Hunter Leggitt Studio for the header image of this article of Metafork in the Road.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – October 10, 2022 (Article updated on October 27, 2022 to say Metafork is possibly planned as a permanent art installation. It was noted that the MetaFork is not currently on display at Tesla Palo Alto as of 10/27/22). All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making life better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
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Optimus robot wears the Giga Texas “Don’t Mess with Tesla” belt buckle. Photo Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
Elon Musk is leading Tesla towards a bright future where the company is just as much an artificial intelligence company as it is a vehicle and energy company.
Elon spoke Friday evening on September 30 at Tesla AI Day 2022 in Palo Alto, California and he introduced the world to an Optimus robot wearing a Giga Texas “Don’t Mess with Tesla” belt buckle. The belt buckle was first seen at the October 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders in which it was used to announce the moving of the Tesla HQ from California to Austin, Texas.
Elon’s unveiling of the new Optimus is also worth a big celebration, so it is appropriate the robot wears the belt buckle. This article highlights,
Optimus is designed to be useful, affordable, and made at scale
Optimus has great potential to transform civilization into a future of abundance
Tesla is structured so the public can ensure a safe future in regards to Optimus
A technical presentation followed by a Q & A reveals more about Optimus
Optimus: Useful, affordable, and made at scale
Elon Musk explains,
“Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible and we’ve also designed it using the same discipline that we used in designing the car, which is to design it for manufacturing such that it’s possible to make the robot at high volume at low cost, with high reliability.
That’s incredibly important, I mean, you’ve all seen very impressive humanoid robot demonstrations and that’s great but what are they missing?
They’re missing a brain and they don’t have the intelligence to navigate the world by themselves and they’re also very expensive and made in low volume, whereas Optimus is designed to be an extremely capable robot but made in very high volume, probably ultimately millions of units and it is expected to cost much less than a car.
I would say, probably less than $20,000, would be my guess.
The potential for Optimus is appreciated by very few people.” – Elon Musk
Optimus has great potential to transform civilization into a future of abundance
One day our civilization may be one of great abundance, as Elon Musk explains,
“The potential really boggles the mind, because you have to say what is an economy?
An economy is sort of productive entities times their productivity.
Capita times output, productivity per capita. But the point at which there’s not a limitation on capita, it’s not clear what an economy even means at that point!
Economy becomes quasi-infinite. So, taken to fruition, in the hopefully benign scenario, this means a future of abundance.
A future where there is no poverty, where you can have whatever you want in terms of products and services.
It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it.” – Elon Musk
Tesla is structured so the public can ensure a safe future in regards to Optimus
This important issue was emphasized by Elon Musk,
“Obviously, we want to make sure that transformation is a positive one, and safe.
But that’s also why I think Tesla, as an entity doing this, being a single class of stock publicly traded owned by the public is very important and should not be overlooked.
I think this is essential, because then, if the public doesn’t like what Tesla is doing, the public can buy shares in Tesla, and vote differently.
This is a big deal, like, it’s very important that I can’t just do what I want. It’s very important that the corporate entity that makes this happen, is something that the public can properly influence.
So I think the Tesla structure is ideal for that. Like I said, self-driving cars will certainly have a tremendous impact on the world.
I think they will improve the productivity of transport by at least a half order of magnitude, perhaps an order of magnitude, perhaps more.
Optimus has maybe a two order of magnitude potential improvement in economic output. It’s not clear what the limit actually even is. But we need to do this in the right way. We need to do it carefully, and safely and ensure that the outcome is one that is beneficial to civilization and one that humanity wants.
This is extremely important, obviously.” – Elon Musk
Elon Musk also explained to the audience that,
“At Tesla, we really care about doing the right thing or are inspired to do the right thing, and really not pave the road to hell with good intentions and I think the road to hell is mostly paved with bad intentions, but every now and again, there’s a good intention in there.
We want to do the right thing.” – Elon Musk
Tesla Optimus humanoid robot. Photo Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
A technical presentation followed by a Q & A reveals more about Optimus
You can watch the presentation on Tesla YouTube, and it may be best watched in parts as it is
technical.
Prior to questions and answers from the audience, Elon explained,
“We really wanted to show the depth and breadth of Tesla and artificial intelligence, compute hardware, robotics actuators, and try to really shift the perception of the company away from … you know a lot of people think we’re just a car company, or we make cool cars, or whatever.
Most people have no idea that Tesla is arguably the leader in AI hardware and software and that we are building what is arguably the first, the most radical computer architecture since the Cray-1 supercomputer.
I think if you’re interested in developing some of the most advanced technology in the world that’s going to affect the world in a positive way, Tesla is the place to be.” – Elon Musk
Many interesting points were made during the 40-minute Q & A session, including,
There will be endless possibilities for Optimus, many different versions are planned
You will be able to have a conversation with Optimus
As a safety precaution, Optimus will not have over-the-air updates. Optimus will have a safety off-switch
Optimus should be ready for customers in 3-5 years
Tesla may begin a monthly podcast to explain what is going on behind the scenes
Tesla Optimus humanoid robot. Photo Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
It has great potential to transform civilization into a future of abundance.
To ensure this is done right, Elon Musk explained that, “Obviously, we want to make sure that transformation is a positive one, and safe. But that’s also why I think Tesla, as an entity doing this, being a single class of stock publicly traded owned by the public is very important and should not be overlooked. I think this is essential, because then, if the public doesn’t like what Tesla is doing, the public can buy shares in Tesla, and vote differently. This is a big deal, like, it’s very important that I can’t just do what I want. It’s very important that the corporate entity that makes this happen, is something that the public can properly influence. So I think the Tesla structure is ideal for that.”
How do you think an Optimus Robot could make your life more abundant?
Giant fork in the road leads to Tesla’s Optimus AI Tesla’s Optimus robot is already working at the Fremont factory, and exactly how many robots are in Tesla’s fleet? Elon Musk installed a giant 30ft fork in the road created by Burning Man artist Hunter Leggitt outside the Autopilot office in Palo Alto, will this be a permanent art installation?
Read Elon Musk’s essay on technology for a better future Elon Musk is optimistic, lives with a sense of urgency, and takes action to make the future good. His essay is an inspiration to all people, and here he talks about exciting uses for the Optimus humanoid robot!
Who will Benefit once Tesla Autonomy is Solved? I believe a world where autonomy is the norm is closer than we realize. This article attempts to answer the question, who will benefit once Tesla autonomy is solved?
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – October 2, 2022. All Rights Reserved.
My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making life better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time donation to support What’s Up Tesla
Make a monthly donation to support What’s Up Tesla
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