Elon Musk has set a new goal for Tesla: help build Artificial General Intelligence and bring it into a physical humanoid form. He shared this in a short post on X, saying that “Tesla will be one of the companies to make AGI and probably the first to make it in humanoid/atom-shaping form.” The remark puts Tesla’s robot plans closer to the center of his wider AI vision, even though his separate firm xAI is the one openly focused on AGI models today.
The phrase “humanoid/atom-shaping” points to AI that does not stay on a server but acts through machines that can handle real materials and real tasks.
Tesla is moving in that direction by reworking one of its longest-running lines. During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Musk said production of the Model S and Model X at the Fremont, California plant will be phased out. That line will be rebuilt as a pilot line for the Optimus humanoid robot.
Tesla is aiming for about 1 million Optimus units a year once the line ramps. This is similar to a high-volume car program and would require major spending on hardware, logistics and workforce training. Musk has said earlier that he wants the robot eventually priced around the lower end of a car.
Optimus and the Von Neumann probe idea
Musk has also attached a more speculative idea to Optimus. He has spoken of the robot as a future Von Neumann probe, a concept from mathematician John von Neumann about machines that can copy themselves using local resources on planets or in space. In recent posts, he has suggested that an advanced form of Optimus could build infrastructure, replicate itself and spread to other worlds.
That scenario would demand far more than narrow task automation. It would require robots that can plan, adapt, work with limited supervision and learn in new environments. In other words, it would need something close to AGI in a physical body.
xAI, SpaceX and a possible wider tie-up
At the same time, Musk has been reshaping his AI portfolio outside Tesla. His AI startup xAI is developing the Grok model and is explicitly framed as an AGI effort. Earlier this year, xAI was merged into SpaceX in a large deal that created a combined group valued at more than a trillion dollars. This structure gives Musk a way to share AI talent and compute across rocketry, satellite networks and AI research.
His new comment about a Tesla humanoid product with AGI has led some analysts to expect tighter technical links between Tesla and xAI. One plausible path, they say, is an Optimus platform that runs xAI models, with Tesla focusing on hardware and integration and xAI supplying the brain.
However, Tesla has a history of setting very aggressive timelines and then revising them later. Supporters argue that even if dates slip, the company often ends up shipping products that move markets. Critics say these forecasts can mislead investors and set expectations that are hard to meet.
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