A mockup of Tesla Inc.’s deliberate humanoid robotic Optimus on show in the course of the Seoul Mobility Present in Goyang, South Korea, on Thursday, March 30, 2023. The motor present will proceed by means of April 9. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg through Getty Photos
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All the worth of the S&P 500 presently stands at $45.5 trillion, in line with FactSet. Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed on Thursday that his firm’s Optimus humanoid robots may ultimately make the automaker price greater than half of that.
Musk, who characterised himself as “pathologically optimistic” on the 2024 annual shareholder assembly in Austin, Texas, mentioned Tesla is embarking on not only a “new chapter” in its life, however is about to put in writing a completely “new e book.” Optimus seems to be one of many major characters.
Tesla first revealed its plans to work on humanoid robots in 2021 at an AI Day occasion, trotting out a dancer in a unitard that appeared like a glossy, androgynous robotic.
In January, Tesla confirmed off Optimus robots folding laundry in a demo video that was instantly criticized by robotics engineers for being misleading. The robots weren’t autonomous, however had been quite being operated with people on the controls.
On the shareholder occasion on Thursday, Musk did not disclose precisely what Optimus can do immediately. He instructed the robots some day will carry out like R2-D2 and C-3PO in Star Wars. They may prepare dinner or clear for you, do manufacturing facility work, and even educate your kids, Musk instructed.
As for shareholder worth, Musk mentioned Optimus might be the catalyst for lifting Tesla’s market cap to $25 trillion sometime.
Chatting with a crowd consisting principally of fawning fanboys in an auditorium on the Gigafactory, Musk promised Tesla would transfer into “restricted manufacturing” of Optimus in 2025 and take a look at out humanoid robots in its personal factories subsequent yr.
The corporate, he predicted, may have “over 1,000, or a couple of thousand, Optimus robots working at Tesla” in 2025.
That is all far-out stuff even for Musk, who’s infamous for making bold guarantees to traders and prospects that do not pan out — from growing software program that may flip an current Tesla right into a self-driving automobile with an add, to EV battery swapping stations.
Attending to a $25 trillion market cap would imply that Tesla can be price about eight instances Apple’s worth immediately. The iPhone maker is presently the world’s greatest firm by market cap, simply forward of Microsoft.
At Thursday’s shut, Tesla was valued at about $580 billion, making it the tenth most precious firm within the S&P 500.
Musk did not present a timeframe for reaching $25 trillion. He did say that autonomous autos may get the corporate to a market cap of $5 trillion to $7 trillion.
Musk mentioned he agreed with numbers from long-time Tesla bull Cathie Wooden, the CEO of ARK Make investments. This week, ARK put a $2,600 worth goal on Tesla’s inventory by 2029, betting on a business robotaxi enterprise that the corporate has but to enter.
Wooden’s worth goal equals a market cap for Tesla of over $8 trillion.
Musk’s feedback on the annual assembly adopted the shareholder vote to reinstate the CEO’s $56 billion pay plan, 5 months after a Delaware court docket ordered the corporate to rescind the package deal. The group cheered when the proposal was learn aloud, and when preliminary outcomes had been introduced.
Taking the stage following the readout of the shareholder votes, Musk mentioned, “I simply wish to begin off by saying scorching d—! I really like you guys.”
Tesla shares have dropped 27% this yr as the corporate reckons with a gross sales decline that is tied partially to an getting old lineup of electrical autos and elevated competitors in China. The corporate has additionally applied steep layoffs. Musk has inspired traders to look previous the present state of the enterprise and extra towards a way forward for autonomous driving, robots and synthetic intelligence.
Amongst his boldest claims on Thursday was Musk’s declaration that Tesla had superior up to now in growing silicon that it is surpassed Nvidia in terms of inference, or the method that skilled machine studying fashions use to attract conclusions from new information.
Nvidia shares have soared virtually nine-fold because the finish of 2022, pushed by demand for its AI chips. The corporate is now price about $3.2 trillion.
One concern swirling round Musk is his give attention to Tesla given all of his different commitments. He owns and runs social media firm X, is CEO of SpaceX, and based The Boring Co. and Neuralink. He launched one other startup, xAI, in March final yr and the corporate lately raised $6 billion in enterprise funding.
Musk was requested by a shareholder on the assembly how necessary he’s, personally, to the way forward for Tesla.
“I am a useful accelerant to that future,” he mentioned, emphasizing his position in innovation.
He mentioned that, in terms of humanoid robots, different firms, together with tech startups, are going after the market. Rivals embrace Boston Dynamics, Agility, Neura and Apptronik.
“What actually issues is, can we be a lot sooner than everybody else and our product be performed a couple of years earlier than theirs and be higher,” Musk mentioned.
WATCH: Tesla shareholders approve Musk’s $56 billion pay package deal
