Tesla is once again delaying the production of its Optimus humanoid robot, CEO Elon Musk announced on X (formerly Twitter) Monday.
During April’s annual investor meeting, Musk told shareholders that Optimus would move into limited production in 2025 and predicted that “thousands” of the robots would be working in Tesla factories by the end of the year. He also hypothesized that sales of the robot, which is expected to retail for between $20,000 and $30,000, could add as much as $20 trillion to the company’s market capitalization.
“Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year and, hopefully, high production for other companies in 2026,” he amended Monday. Musk did not explain what he considers “genuinely useful” functionality.
Two Optimus robots reportedly work in one of Tesla’s factories, though the company has not revealed what their actual duties on the floor are. A recent promotional video from the company showed a second-generation Optimus folding shirts.
Optimus folds a shirt pic.twitter.com/3F5o3jVLq1
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2024
Of course, this isn’t the first time that Musk has over-promised his investors on delivering product. In 2019, he claimed that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving autonomous vehicle assist would enable the company to roll out a fleet of “robotaxis” by 2020. Those have yet to arrive, though Musk posted on X last week that the company is taking additional time to unveil its autonomous cabs in order to incorporate “an important design change” to the front of the vehicle.
What’s more, the Cybertruck was initially supposed to hit the street in 2021, but multiple delays pushed back its release to November 2023. And even after its debut, the company has repeatedly paused and rescheduled delivery of the long-awaited electric SUV to customers. And who can forget that the first “Optimus” ever revealed on stage was actually just a guy in a lycra bodysuit?
“A sentient humanoid robot by 2025? I mean come on, they tried to launch this product with a dancer inside of a robot suit,” Roth MKM analyst Craig Irwin quipped on Yahoo Finance Monday. “It’s gonna be hard for them to catch up to Boston Dynamics. What they’ve shown us is really state of the art for 2014.”
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.