Elon Musk has an ambitious new target for when Tesla's Optimus robots will go on sale

By William Gavin

The Tesla CEO has told shareholders that humanoid robots could add $20 trillion to the company's valuation

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been optimistic about the market for humanoid robots and has said Tesla's Optimus could one day account for 80% of the company's valuation.

Elon Musk said Thursday that Tesla's Optimus robots should be available to the public by the end of next year, after the company refines the technology.

"That's when we are confident that its very high reliability, very high safety and the range of functionality is high," Musk told Laurence Fink, the CEO of BlackRock and the interim co-chair of the World Economic Forum.

Tesla (TSLA) first demonstrated a prototype Optimus in 2022 but has had some difficulty designing the robots and scaling production. Last January, Musk said his "rough guess" was that Tesla would ship Optimus robots to third-party companies, but not to consumers, in the second half of 2026, or "something like that."

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"We do have some Tesla Optimus robots doing simple tasks in the factory," Musk told Fink during an interview at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. "By the end of this year, I think they'll be doing more complex tasks, but still deployed in an industrial environment."

Tesla views Optimus as a way to enter a market that could be worth more than $5 trillion by 2050, according to Morgan Stanley estimates.

However, fewer than 1 million humanoid robots are expected to be sold in the U.S. by the end of the decade, according to Morgan Stanley. Only a handful of companies, among them 1X Technologies, plan to begin selling or trialing humanoid robots for household use in 2026.

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Musk has said that 80% of Tesla's value could one day be drawn from Optimus. In June 2024, he told shareholders that the robots could eventually contribute $20 trillion to Tesla's market value.

His vision relies on Tesla selling Optimus for industrial purposes, such as working on assembly lines, as well as to the general public for use as caretakers, teachers and even security guards. Musk has said the robots could sell for between $20,000 and $30,000 each.

But developing and scaling Optimus hasn't been easy. Tesla last year reportedly scrapped plans to build thousands of units for internal use and has had difficulties designing the robots' hands and forearms, as well as sourcing parts.

"So with cars, you've got an existing supply chain," Musk said on a recent earnings call. "With computers, you've got an existing supply chain. With a humanoid robot, there is no supply chain."

A prototype of the third and latest version of Optimus intended for volume production should be ready for a demonstration by March, according to Musk. Earlier this week, he warned that production will be "agonizingly slow" when it is expected to begin in late 2026.

"This is becoming an increasingly important part of the Tesla story and valuation," Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said of Optimus in a note to investors on Wednesday. "An update on timing of product unveil and start of production will be watched closely, particularly following a humanoid-packed CES," referring to the recent Consumer Electronics Show.

-William Gavin

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