— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 31, 2024 Tesla unveiled the Optimus robot design in 2022 at its AI Day event to some degree of disdain from “experts.” First mention of the company’s interest in designing such a robot came a year earlier when a Musk presentation included a model dressed in a robot suit putting on a dance routine. At the time, tech blog The Verge said the event was “a distraction and an empty promise.” The Verge then quoted Carl Berry, described as “a lecturer in robotics” at a university in the U.K., dismissing the Tesla initiative. “[Calling it] horse **** sounds generous, frankly,” Berry told The Verge. Initial statements from Tesla have indicated that the Optimus bot should sell for around $20K and be used to do menial and repetitive tasks. An earlier video of the robot demonstrated it folding a shirt. Optimus folds a shirt – -AI pic.twitter.com/IixHndEktX