Marking a clearer step toward a new growth engine, Tesla has signaled that its humanoid robot program is moving closer to the consumer market. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said the company is likely to begin selling Optimus robots to the public by the end of next year, once strict reliability and safety benchmarks are met.
Tesla is already deploying Optimus robots inside its factories to handle basic tasks, Musk said during a discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He added that the robots are expected to take on “doing more complex tasks” by the end of 2026.
Sales to consumers will only start when Tesla is “confident that it’s very high reliability, very high safety, and the range of functionality is also very high,” Musk said.
The comments provide a firmer timeline for a business Musk believes will become central to Tesla’s future, alongside artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles. The shift comes as Tesla’s core car business faces pressure from a limited product refresh cycle and the removal of EV incentives in the US, contributing to 2 straight years of declining vehicle deliveries.
While Musk has long highlighted the potential of Optimus, details around production have remained limited. During a January 2025 earnings call, he said his “very rough guess” was that Tesla would begin delivering Optimus robots to other companies in the second half of 2026. Earlier this week, Musk also warned that early production of Optimus and Tesla’s newest vehicle, the Cybercab, will be “agonizingly slow.”
Tesla shares rose 1.7% by 11:45 a.m. in New York following Musk’s remarks.
Musk’s appearance in Davos drew attention, as he was added to the schedule at the last minute. He has previously criticized the forum, calling it “boring,” and describing it as “increasingly becoming an unelected world government that the people never asked for and don’t want.”
“How is WEF/Davos even a thing? Are they trying to be the boss of Earth!?” Musk posted on social media in 2022.
During his conversation with BlackRock Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink, Musk also touched on topics such as robotaxis, space-based data centers, and power generation constraints.
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