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Tesla unveils 'Optimus' robot as Elon Musk faces unenthusiastic investors

Elon Musk
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Tesla's Elon Musk faces unenthusiastic investors amid his company's pitch to have thousands of humanoid robots deployed into its factories and eventually around the world.

Musk, who once blamed over-reliance on robots for putting his factories in "production hell," is now working to build support for the new venture, Reuters reported.

The Tesla Bot or "Optimus" would serve as a "general purpose" assistant, performing actions like receiving items and other tasks.

Nancy Cooke, a professor in human systems engineering at Arizona State University, said the robots would have to prove they can do unscripted actions to be impressive.

“If he just gets the robot to walk around, or he gets the robots to dance, that’s already been done. That’s not that impressive,” Cooke said.

Musk says the robot will be there to perform boring or dangerous tasks.

He also joked that the robot would only be able to run around 5 miles per hour so that humans would be able to run from it.