Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots stole the show at Elon Musk’s splashy Hollywood event on Thursday night as they danced onstage, served up watermelon-flavored cocktails and charmed guests with their fun and friendly chit-chat.
Following Musk’s introduction, the robots emerged from parted curtains and walked into the audience in a single-file line. The faceless, tall figures with joint-like bends around the knees, hips, shoulders and elbows – can “basically do anything you want,” Musk said.
A bartending bot – which wore a cowboy hat – spoke with a shockingly humanlike cadence.
“How’s everybody doing?” it called out from time to time, with a a hint of a Texas drawl. “How am I doing so far?”
When one customer asked for a watermelon-flavored drink, Optimus double-checked their order: “A watermelon? ’Course you can!”
Optimus can help with everyday tasks, like grocery shopping and mowing the lawn, he claimed — but also be a part of the family: It can be a teacher, babysit your kids, walk your dog, serve after-dinner drinks – or it can just be your friend, Musk said.
“I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind,” Musk said.
The “autonomous assistant, humanoid friend” will cost less than a car — between $20,000 to $30,000 in the long term, he said.
The bots are “something that anyone can own,” Musk said.
He previously said Tesla may be able to sell the humanoid robots externally by the end of next year.
A handful of the robots were enclosed in a gazebo on Thursday night, where they danced around a disco ball and fog machine to techno music.
Musk seemingly had other robots on the clock, handing out gift bags to guests. The cowboy-hatted Optimus robot can be seen in a video taking orders and then pouring drinks from a tap into cups full of ice.
When an event attendee told Optimus he was doing a good job, the robot looked up in acknowledgement.
“You wanna get a photo?” Optimus asked. Then it made a peace sign with its hand.
Another bot chatted with a human man at the event and asked about his hometown.
“I’m from San Jose, probably from where you were born in Silicon Valley,” the human event attendee joked.
“That’s wonderful! Where do you live in San Jose? The Almaden Valley?” Optimus replied.
When the man said he lived in Los Gatos, Optimus said: “Los Gatos, oh, wonderful! Nice area. Beautiful hiking, I hear, out there.”
And the robot did not shy away from answering where it lived.
“Um, I live in Palo Alto at the current moment. That’s where they train us, that’s where we get our builds and that’s where we work with a wonderful group of people,” Optimus said.
Another robot played a game of rock, paper, scissors with a guest. It won the game, then started dancing within the crowd.
Despite its ability to small talk, dance and serve up cocktails, Optimus knows it’s not a real human.
“What’s the hardest thing about being a robot?” a guest asked.
“Uh…trying to learn to be as human as you guys are,” Optimus said. “And that’s something I try harder to do every day and I hope that you will help us become that way.”
Musk’s latest Optimus models are leaps and bounds from more hypothetical talks of the project just a few years ago.
During a Tesla event in 2021, Musk introduced his “Tesla bot” – a human man in a robot suit who took to the stage to perform a dance.
The following year, Musk showed off some genuine robot prototypes. One of those robots was able to gingerly walk around onstage, while another was held up by a stand while it waved at the audience.
But a promotional video from Thursday night’s event showed Optimus living with a family and contributing to the household.
The robot is seen in the video watering plants, picking up packages from the front door, cleaning the kitchen after dinner, unloading groceries from a car trunk and unwinding with a board game with the family’s kids.
Musk has previously boasted that the robots will be a “fundamental transformation for civilization.”
They will be mass produced and allow for “a future where there is no poverty,” he has said.