This past Wednesday, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, stated on his company's fourth quarter earnings call that that a humanoid robot would be the "most important product" for the electric vehicle maker to launch this year.
Back in August 2021, Musk tried out the "Tesla Bot" by placing a person in a robot suit. He advised everyone during Tesla's "AI Day" that it "probably won't work," but also went on to say that he intended to come up with some sort of prototype within the next year. "I think it has the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time," Musk stated regarding the robot, which has a code name of "Optimus."
While some believe that Musk's comments were made on the earnings call to signify that the establishment of the robot will take the place of the development of vehicles, others believe that this belief is an exaggeration. In general, many believe that Musk is referring to the long-term impact that the development of a robot may have, particularly when it comes to taking on any kind of physical work.
Musk also noted in the earnings call that "the Optimus name seems to be sticking at least internally, Optimus Subprime" and that "the first use of the Optimus robots would be, at Tesla, like moving parts around the factory or something like that."
The full establishment of the Tesla robot could be far off and may never happen, but Musk did say on Wednesday that it might have future capability of making big breakthroughs in the economy, particularly when it comes to activities that can presently only be done by people.
"If you think about the economy, it is - the foundation of the economy is labor," Musk said in a statement to investors. "Capital equipment is distilled labor. So what happens if you don't actually have a labor shortage? I'm not sure what an economy even means at that point. That's what Optimus is about, so [it's] very important."