In a move that will shock absolutely no one familiar with his penchant for ambitious deadlines, Tesla, Inc. CEO Elon Musk has claimed that the company’s Optimus humanoid robot will be available for public sale by the end of 2027. The announcement was made during a sit-down at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland—a venue typically reserved for high-level debates on global macroeconomics, rather than the arrival of your next mechanical housemate.
According to Musk, a handful of Optimus units are already “getting their hands dirty” with simple tasks on Tesla’s factory floors. He expects them to graduate to more complex roles later this year. However, the leap from a highly controlled factory environment to the unpredictable chaos of a typical family home is, to put it mildly, a bit of a stretch. Musk added his customary disclaimer: the public rollout depends on Tesla being “confident that it’s very high reliability, very high safety and the range of functionality is also very high.” In short, you can buy one when it’s ready—and Musk reckons it’ll be ready by late 2027. Probably.
Why does this matter?
Musk’s timeline isn’t just a bold claim; it’s a direct shot across the bows of an increasingly crowded field. While Tesla’s demos have often been met with a raised eyebrow regarding how much “human assistance” is happening behind the scenes, firms like Figure AI, Agility Robotics, and Apptronik are already trialling their humanoids in genuine industrial settings. The race is well and truly on to crack the code of the general-purpose humanoid—a market some analysts believe could eventually be worth trillions.
This announcement firmly shifts the dream of the consumer droid from the realms of science fiction into the actual product roadmaps of a tech giant. While industry experts remain sceptical about such a rapid transition from factory workhorse to domestic helper, Musk has a long history of setting “impossible” goals to galvanise his engineers. Whether we’ll actually be asking an Optimus to handle the washing up in 2028, or simply watching another polished demo video, remains to be seen.
