Tesla, long synonymous with electric vehicles and the outsized personality of its CEO Elon Musk, is now pivoting toward a bold, futuristic ambition: humanoid robots. In a series of posts on X earlier this week, Musk declared that he believes “around 80% of Tesla’s value will be Optimus,” referring to the company’s much-hyped humanoid robot. The statement, made on Tuesday, September 2, 2025, signals a dramatic shift in Tesla’s priorities at a time when its core business faces mounting challenges.
According to Fortune, Musk’s comments coincided with Tesla’s release of its “Master Plan Part IV,” which puts a spotlight on bringing artificial intelligence into the physical world. “We are building the products and services that bring AI into the physical world,” Tesla wrote in its social media announcement. “We have been working tirelessly for nearly two decades to create the foundation for this technological renaissance through the development of electric vehicles, energy products, and humanoid robots.” The plan positions Optimus as a game-changer: “Optimus … is changing not only the perception of labor itself but its availability and capability. Jobs and tasks that are particularly monotonous or dangerous can now be accomplished by other means. In this way, Optimus’s mission is to give people back more time to do what they love.”
But why this sudden pivot? The answer, at least in part, lies in the numbers. Tesla’s global sales have been slipping. The company reported a 13% drop in electric vehicle deliveries in the first half of 2025, with sales in the European Union plunging a staggering 40% in July alone, as reported by Fortune. This downturn comes amid fierce competition from Chinese automakers and a host of other pressures, including public unease over Musk’s own polarizing persona. The result: a sticky situation for what was once the world’s premier EV brand.
Enter Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot project, which Musk says will one day dwarf the company’s car business. First unveiled in 2021, Optimus is envisioned as a bipedal bot capable of performing a wide range of tasks—everything from factory work to household chores. Musk has even mused about the robot “babysitting your kid, walking your dog, mowing your lawn, getting the groceries, just being your friend, serving drinks.” And, presumably, making dinner, too. The vision is both sweeping and, for now, aspirational.
Of course, building a robot that can do all that is no small feat. Tesla’s Master Plan is ambitious: “This next chapter in Tesla’s story will help create a world we’ve only just begun to imagine and will do so at a scale that we have yet to see,” the company wrote. But the road to realization has been anything but smooth. According to Fortune, production of the Optimus bots has been hampered by trade disputes—specifically, former President Donald Trump’s hardened export controls on rare-earth materials from China, which are essential to building the motors inside Tesla’s robots. These supply chain headaches have contributed to delays, and the project has also faced internal turbulence: Milan Kovac, who led Optimus development, stepped down from his role in June 2025.
Despite these setbacks, Musk remains bullish. At the start of this year, he predicted that Tesla would manufacture thousands of Optimus bots in 2025 and projected that the project could generate more than $10 trillion in long-term revenue. But when asked about a timeline for Optimus to become a significant part of Tesla’s business, Musk was less specific. The robot is still under development, and meaningful deployment at scale could be years away.
And then there’s the matter of cost. Musk said last year that when Optimus is produced at scale, it could cost between $20,000 and $30,000 per unit. While that might sound steep, it’s actually on the lower end compared to some competitors. But it’s not the lowest: California-based K-Scale Labs has developed a humanoid robot priced at just $9,000 per unit, less than half of Optimus’s projected starting price, according to Fortune.
The competition in the humanoid robot sector is heating up. Tesla faces rivals on multiple fronts, including American company Figure AI, which has raised more than $700 million since its founding in 2022 and is reportedly valued near $40 billion. Figure has attracted investment from tech heavyweights such as Jeff Bezos’s Bezos Expeditions, Intel Capital, Microsoft, and Nvidia. Meanwhile, China’s industrial robot sales have nearly doubled from 150,000 units in 2017 to about 300,000 units in 2024, according to an August HSBC Qianhai report cited by Fortune. The report also notes that Chinese suppliers are commercializing humanoid robots faster than their overseas peers, thanks in part to a focus on open-source development that could help lower costs and speed up adoption.
As Kevin Cook, senior stock strategist at Zacks Investment Research, told Fortune: “[Musk] has got so much competition now with robots. There are dozens and dozens of small startups doing this for cheaper and open-source—and then big players too, like Figure—so he’s got his work cut out for him.”
It’s not just about price, either. The market for humanoid robots is expected to explode in the coming decades. Morgan Stanley research predicted in May that the market could reach $5 trillion by 2050, with up to 1 billion bots in use within 25 years. This potential gold rush has attracted not only tech giants but also a swarm of startups eager to stake their claim.
Despite the crowded field, Tesla’s brand and Musk’s vision still carry significant weight. The company’s Master Plan positions Optimus as the benchmark for the industry, at least in the eyes of the market. “As one of the most advanced and high-profile humanoid robot makers, Tesla’s production guidance was taken by the market as a benchmark for understanding how much progress is being made to manufacture humanoid robots at scale,” the HSBC report stated. Still, the report cautioned, “we believe the market might have overlooked progress made by Chinese humanoid robot suppliers, where commercialization is speeding up compared to overseas peers.”
Meanwhile, investment in so-called “physical AI” is becoming a top priority for tech leaders. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently introduced a $3,499 developer kit for robot “brains,” underscoring the sector’s rapid evolution. As Cook noted, “Elon is not alone in seeing the big future of robotics and physical AI. He’s been obviously training his Tesla cars for 15 years with AI systems, and so it’s only natural for him to move into other autonomous machines.”
For Tesla, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The company is betting that its future will be built not just on four wheels, but on two legs. Whether Optimus can deliver on Musk’s ambitious promises remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: the race to build the world’s first truly useful humanoid robot is just getting started, and Tesla is determined to be at the front of the pack.
As the world watches, the next chapter of Tesla’s story may be written not on the open road, but in the factories and homes of tomorrow—by robots that, for now, still exist mostly in the realm of possibility.
