Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a high-profile appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to share a bold update on the future of labor. During a discussion with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink on Thursday, January 22, Musk revealed that the company is aiming to make its Optimus humanoid robots available for public sale by the end of 2027.
Meanwhile, this timeline marks a significant milestone for the project, which the businessman believes will eventually become the most valuable product in Tesla’s portfolio.
Elon Musk announces his Optimus robots will be up for sale soon
Elon Musk revealed that Tesla has already deployed approximately 1,200 Optimus units across its Giga Texas facility to perform basic logistics and assembly tasks. By the end of this year, he expects them to master significantly more complex industrial maneuvers.
However, the most striking reveal was the 2027 public release window. Musk explained that once the technology reaches a threshold of “very high reliability and safety,” it will be ready for the general population. He framed the project as a solution to global labor shortages, particularly in elder care and household management.
“By the end of next year, I think we’ll be selling humanoid robots to the public. That’s when we’re confident that it’s very high reliability, very high safety, and the range of functionality is also very high. You can basically ask it to do anything you’d like,” he stated during the panel (via Fox Business).
Despite this optimism, the 54-year-old offered a reality check regarding the “agonizingly slow” initial production ramp, which he described as an “S-curve.” Because almost every component in Optimus is entirely new, reaching mass scale remains a massive engineering hurdle.
Nevertheless, Elon Musk maintained his vision of a future in which robots outnumber humans, predicting an “explosion in the global economy” that will eventually satisfy all human needs through unprecedented abundance.
