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Business Insiderabout 2 hours ago
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Elon Musk laid out why it's so hard to make Optimus a reality

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Elon Musk detailed the immense challenges of manufacturing Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot at scale, calling it the hardest product in Tesla's history.

Elon Musk laid out why it's so hard to make Optimus a reality

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The Big Picture
During Tesla's Q2 2026 earnings call, Elon Musk outlined the significant difficulties in bringing the Optimus humanoid robot to mass production, describing it as the most complex manufacturing challenge Tesla has ever faced. He emphasized that no one has achieved such a feat before, citing the need for human-level dexterity, reliability, and safety, with the human hand being particularly hard to replicate. Musk noted that there is no existing supply chain for Optimus, forcing Tesla to build one from scratch and produce many parts in-house, while also securing AI chips and solving memory, logic, and packaging issues. He acknowledged his history of overly ambitious timelines and aimed to 'calibrate people correctly' by managing expectations, despite previously stating he would be shocked if Tesla wasn't producing 100,000 robots per month within five years. The success of Optimus is tied to Musk's compensation package, which requires delivering one million robots in the next decade.
Why It Matters
Elon Musk's candid admission about the immense difficulty of manufacturing Optimus at scale signals that humanoid robots are still far from mass-market reality, despite his grand visions. This matters because it tempers investor and public expectations, highlighting the gap between AI hype and the hard engineering challenges of dexterity, supply chains, and production. For the tech industry, it underscores that even with Tesla's resources, building a general-purpose humanoid robot remains a decade-long endeavor, not a near-term product.

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A prototype of Tesla's Optimus robot.
A prototype of Tesla
A prototype of Tesla's Optimus robot.

CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

  • Elon Musk detailed just how tough it will be to make Optimus a reality during Tesla's earnings call.
  • He said it will be the hardest product to manufacture at scale in Tesla's history.
  • Musk, known for setting overly ambitious timelines, said he wanted to "calibrate people correctly."

Elon Musk is discovering just how difficult it is to build a robot that can walk, talk, and think like a human.

The Tesla CEO said during the automaker's second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday that building Optimus, a humanoid robot, is a "very complex problem to solve," and "no one's ever achieved this."

While Musk said he believes Optimus will be the "biggest product ever," he flagged "many challenges" in designing it to be dexterous, reliable, durable, and safe.

For example, he said that he wants Optimus to have at least the same dexterity as a person, but the "human hand is an incredible thing."

He pointed out that "there is no supply chain" for Optimus, so Tesla has had to build one from scratch and produce some parts in-house. The automaker has to not only secure enough AI chips but also "solve memory, logic, and packaging" to make Optimus a success, he added.

Musk also underlined how tough it will be to crank out huge numbers of the robots.

"This is going to be the hardest product to scale manufacturing that we've ever made at Tesla," he said.

Musk explained that's because "everything on the robot is new," which makes it much harder to ramp up production.

The world's richest man and CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, known for giving overly ambitious timelines, said he was managing expectations.

"I just want to make sure to calibrate people correctly," Musk said.

Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Musk has previously described the magnitude of the task at hand. This time last year, he spoke about how Tesla has to design everything from the motor and gearbox to the controls and sensors, not to mention train Optimus. Yet he also said he'd be "shocked" if Tesla wasn't making 100,000 robots a month in five years' time.

Notably, Tesla described its plans for "volume" and "mass" production of Optimus in its earnings presentation last quarter, but didn't use those terms in Wednesday's presentation.

Musk stands to gain handsomely from making Optimus a success. One of the milestones he must reach to unlock the full value of his latest compensation agreement is delivering one million Optimus robots in the next decade.

Read the original article on Business Insider
AI Manufacturing Robotics Tesla Elon Musk

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