This is also a far cry from what Musk was saying last year. In January 2025, he said Tesla would build about 10,000 Optimus robots in 2025 and that “several thousand” would be doing useful work by year-end. A year later, he admitted that zero Optimus robots were doing useful work at Tesla. He also promised a V3 reveal by mid-2026. It’s late September, and that demo still hasn’t happened.