Elon Musk Thinks 80% of TSLA’s Value Will Be Optimus—Is He Right?

Whenever Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) CEO Elon Musk talks about his vision for the future, it can be easy to doubt the man as overly optimistic. Still, it’s proven profoundly profitable to give the man the benefit of the doubt, even as skeptics and analysts turn against him and shares of TSLA. With Musk recently noting on X (formerly Twitter) that Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, could make up about 80% of Tesla’s value, I think investors might wish to take a step back and consider the true potential behind what may very well be Tesla’s “biggest product ever.”

Of course, he may not be able to get the timing right on emerging technologies. However, if you’re a long-term investor, I think the timing is a less important factor, even if it means missing out on other opportunities out there by being too early to the next big technological shift. Either way, it’s clear that Tesla stock deserves to be valued not as an automaker but as an AI company, or maybe even a diversified AI ETF, given how the firm could use its AI tech to disrupt new markets and unlock new cash flow streams.

For growth-minded investors who don’t mind stomaching a bit of added volatility, I think it’s better to be early than late to punch a ticket to the next profound nascent technology. With robots hogging the headlines of late, and Musk expressing confidence in Tesla’s Optimus line of humanoid robots, it’s becoming tougher to envision the distant future (think beyond the next 10 years), given the pace of AI’s advancement.

The robotics revolution is underway, and Tesla is a leader in the space

Indeed, artificial intelligence (AI bubble) commentary may very well be distracting (and even scaring) long-term investors from the real growth opportunities offered by an agentic AI and an eventual embodied AI revolution. Indeed, once models gain a greater sense of agency, a natural next step is for them to take on a more physical form. Whether that’s in the form of a desktop robot, like the one that’s rumored to be in the works over at Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), or something far more ambitious like Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot, I think there’s no standing in the way of the wave that’s to come.

As AI models become more innovative, more personalized, and better at decision-making on the fly, it’s the robotics revolution that could automate even the work previously deemed as safe, given the physical and more hands-on nature.

Of course, it’s tough to tell when we’ll start seeing Optimus, and it’s like in daily life. But if it’s already capable of serving drinks and performing repetitive tasks at Tesla factories, the possibilities are difficult to fathom. And with a tech-friendly Trump administration in the White House, perhaps it’s not hard to imagine that such revolutionary technologies are racing ahead in the fast lane rather than that right-most lane.

Though Optimus isn’t a needle-mover today, I do think that Musk is right to be so bullish on the revolutionary technology that might transform Tesla from EV maker to the king of robots in a few decades’ time. Of course, there are a ton of practical problems to iron out before Optimus can experience a meteoric rise, but if you’re a Musk believer, I think it’s still worth it to be early to the game, even if it means passing up timelier opportunities.

The bottom line

The robotics revolution may very well be underway, with much of the physical AI already hard at work behind the scenes. As AI reasoning and computer vision get better, it’s not too hard to imagine that the revolution behind the scenes will eventually lead to an era where it’s not uncommon to see one hard at work in the wild, whether that’s in the form of household robots, more self-driving vehicles on the roads, autonomous delivery bots, robot baristas, or something else.