To what end? Who knows? Tesla isn't even using them in its own factories yet

Elon Musk's car company is getting ready to be Skynet. Tesla, facing an 11 percent decline in automotive revenue in Q4 2025, has committed to $20 billion in capex spending this year on manufacturing and compute infrastructure. The goal: build lots of humanoid robots.

The cash conflagration includes a plan to shift its Fremont, California, manufacturing facility from making Tesla S and X model vehicles, discontinued as of Q2 2026, into a production line capable of turning out one million Optimus robots annually.

Optimus, as described by Tesla, is "A general purpose, bi-pedal, humanoid robot capable of performing tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring." Tesla says it is aiming at a manufacturing cost of $20,000 per unit.

"I'm confident that we'll get to a million units a year in Fremont of Optimus 3," said Musk on Tesla's Q4 2025 earnings call. "This Optimus really ...