Tesla planned about 10,000 Optimus robots in 2025; a year on, Musk said they did only basic tasks
Musk later said the robots did only basic tasks, and outside sales slipped to about the end of 2027. Tesla hasn't said how many it built.
Elon Musk has set public targets for Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot for several years. In June 2024 he said he expected a thousand to a couple of thousand Optimus robots working in Tesla factories by 2025. On the January 2025 earnings call he said the internal plan was roughly 10,000 robots built that year. He added that Tesla would “probably not” hit exactly that but would make several thousand, and guessed outside companies would start receiving robots in the second half of 2026.
A year later the picture was different. On the January 2026 call Musk said Optimus had done some basic tasks in the factory but was not in use there in a material way. He did not expect significant production until about the end of 2026. Tesla has not published how many Optimus robots it built in 2025. IDC, a market tracker, said in early 2026 that Tesla’s humanoid remained in internal testing.
In October 2026 Musk said Tesla had started early production on a Fremont line designed for about 1 million robots a year, and that reaching that rate would take at least a year. He now expects to deliver Optimus to outside companies around the end of 2027, more than a year later than his January 2025 guess. He also said Tesla’s robots do not yet have perfected hands.
What it means
Musk’s dates for Optimus have slipped by more than a year, and Tesla has not said how many robots it has built. Until robots reach outside customers, nobody outside Tesla can check what they can do. Targets like the 1-million-a-year line are plans, not results.
Caveats
- This entry compares Musk’s forecasts with his own later statements. There are no independent counts of Optimus robots built or working.
- The 1 million figure is the line’s designed capacity, not output. Musk has said the production ramp for Optimus will take longer than for Tesla’s other products.
- Earlier public demos were not always autonomous: at Tesla’s October 2024 “We, Robot” event, Optimus robots serving guests were reportedly guided by remote human operators.
- Quotes come from The Motley Fool’s published call transcripts, not from Tesla, so wording may differ slightly from the recordings.