Tesla CEO Elon Musk has once again set an ambitious timeline for the company’s long-awaited humanoid robot, Optimus. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Musk said Tesla plans to begin selling Optimus robots to the public by the end of 2027, assuming the machines meet the company’s desired levels of reliability, safety and functionality.
The comments follow a series of developmental milestones over the years. Originally unveiled in 2021 as Tesla Bot, Optimus has gone through several prototype iterations and has already been put into operation to perform simple tasks in Tesla factories. Musk said these internal deployments will increase in complexity later this year and help prepare the robotics platform for broader use.
Ambition meets reality in robotics
Musk’s timeline is bold by any industry standard. Humanoid robotics has long faced major challenges in hardware design, artificial intelligence, and large-scale manufacturing. In his speech in Davos, Musk emphasized that Optimus was not simply being put up for sale to meet a deadline. Instead, he said availability to consumers would depend on the robots proving reliable and safe, adding that sales would not begin until reliability and functionality were “very high.”
Tesla’s long-term vision for Optimus goes far beyond factory work. Musk has described a future in which humanoid robots handle everyday tasks such as household chores and elder care, eventually becoming as commonplace and useful as personal computers or smartphones. He has even suggested that there may one day be “more robots than people,” highlighting how important he believes robotics will be to everyday life.
However, this optimism comes with real skepticism. Optimus’s final public demonstrations showed that the robots were controlled remotely by human operators and did not act autonomously. Combined with Musk’s history of aggressive timelines, many experts remain cautious, noting that true general-purpose humanoid robots still represent an unsolved problem. According to Musk, commercial use could begin in 2026, with public sales following in 2027, but only if Tesla is sure that the robots meet strict standards for reliability, safety and functionality. Whether this is a realistic precaution or a built-in safeguard against delays remains to be seen.
