Elon Musk thinks that Tesla building robots is more important to the company than building vehicles. As a Tesla shareholder I strongly disagree.
In an interview with Wall Street analysts in January 2022 Elon Musk said that he believes the company’s goal of building humanoid robots is the most important technology it’s developing. By his own admission that means he views robots as more important to Tesla’s future than vehicles, solar energy, batteries, or Tesla’s AI for self-driving vehicles.
Think about that for a minute.
Elon Musk went on to say about building robots “This I think has the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time.”
I’m not completely convinced.
I love the idea and technology behind their new Tesla Optimus Bot, but I think it should eventually be spun off as its own stand alone company to further unlock shareholder value.
In my opinion Tesla building robots doesn’t really align with the industries that Tesla is currently involved in right now, and from a future fundraising perspective it’d do better on its own. I also think it would be for a standalone robotics company to more easily sell to businesses and consumers if it wasn’t a part of Tesla in the future.
Recently David Holz, the founder of artificial intelligence research lab Midjourney said on X/Twitter that “we should be expecting a billion humanoid robots on earth in the 2040s and a hundred billion (mostly alien) robots throughout the solar system in the 2060s.”
Elon Musk replied “Probably something like that, provided the foundations of civilization are stable.”
It turns out Elon Musk sorta agrees with me.
In an interview with Reuters he said that while making humanoid robots isn’t “directly in line with accelerating sustainable energy” as part of Tesla’s overarching goal, “I think the mission does somewhat broaden with the advent of Optimus to – you know, I don’t know: making the future awesome.”
So there you have it. Even though Elon Musk didn’t directly say it, I feel like I’m vindicated in my belief that Tesla should spin off their robotics division as a standalone company with Elon Musk agreeing that his vision for robotics isn’t in line with Tesla’s drive toward accelerating sustainable energy.
And lastly, don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of robots, and when they take over someday I hope they’ll remember how nice I was to my own Roomba, but I’d love to see Tesla spin off their robotics division in the future.
A Billion Tesla Humanoid Robots In the 2040s, Says Elon Musk