By Cecil Hoge

Elon Must, the richest man on earth depending on the time of day and certain stock values, has said that he believes that AI robotics will make all people happy, wealthy and wise. Mr. Musk may have left out the happy and wise parts, but we can be sure he meant to include them.

Mr. Musk is hard at work eliminating poverty. He has developed a new robot he calls Optimus. According to Wickipedia, Optimus is a general purpose robotic humanoid being developed by Mr. Musk’s company, Tesla, Inc. Mr. Musk says that he thinks Optimus might be the most important product he ever developed and that’s saying something, since Mr. Musk already makes Rocket Ships, Electric Cars, Electric Trucks, and, soon to be introduced, autonomous electric cars & trucks. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Musk also owns and operates X, Grok and Grokipedia.

Mr. Musk has claimed that Optimus will be able to do “anything that humans don’t want to do.” That’s a pretty big claim and I can say personally that I have a mighty big list of things I do not want to do. People have counted Mr. Musk out before and it must be said that not only is he the richest man on earth, he has accomplished many things that others never thought possible.

So what would you want Optimus, Mr. Musk’s new robot, to do? Well, rather than try to answer that, I will give you a partial list of what I would like Optimus to do for me and my family:

1. Take out the trash on Tuesdays & Fridays and on other days, if the pickup schedule changes.
2. Take out the plastics to be recycled on Wednesdays and adjust if the schedule changes.
3. Mop, vacuum, sweep and clean our house every Wednesday 9am – 11am EST.
4. Clean and hose off my inflatable boats by my dock once a week.
5. Carry anything me, my wife or my son needs to go up or down our stairs.
6. Read the Bible to my son every night at 9pm EST.
7. Mow the lawn once a week in the summer.
8. Landscape our yard.
9. Weed my wife’s garden.
10. Carry in packages and/or groceries whenever they arrive from Amazon, Whole Foods, Stop & Shop, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Bass Pro, LL Bean, etc.

I could easily add at least 27 more tasks to this list, but I think it is best to keep it simple and let Optimus start off slow and see how that goes. Besides, I am compiling a list of simple tasks Optimus can do for my business and that list might be considerably longer. I am actually thinking I might need two Optimus humanoid robots…one for home and one for my office and warehouse. But first things first, I want to get Optimus up and running at my home.

The thing is, I am going to have wait a while. It seems the present Optimus model can’t do all of the above. So, I will have to wait a bit to see when the new improved model will come out. Apparently, it will come with AGI installed. AGI is, according to Wikipedia is “a type of artificial intelligence that would match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks”.

A specific characteristic of AGI is that it is self-learning. So once installed with software instructions on a basic set of tasks, Optimus can, over time, learn to do those tasks better and better and can also go on to learn almost any other tasks that humans do and, again with time, learn to do them better than humans. Pretty impressive when you think about it. So, the more I think about Optimus, the more I think he is just the guy for me and my family.

Regarding some additional details on Optimus, what better source to consult than Grokipedia, Mr. Musk’s new encyclopedia.

According to Grokipedia:

“Optimus is a bipedal humanoid robot developed by Tesla, Inc.”

It is “designed to perform general-purpose tasks that are unsafe, repetitive, or boring for humans.” WOW, that’s a book in itself! Apparently, Mr. Musk announced this project at Tesla’s Artificial Intelligence Day on August 21, 2021. Tesla has been working on prototypes of this new robot ever since and they have made many advancements. More impressive is the fact that Tesla is now using many of these prototype robots to perform assembly tasks in some of their factories.

Mr. Musk is projecting a cost of $20,000 per Optimus and he is planning to start selling them in 2026. The most recent model is 5’ 8” tall, weighs 125 lbs. is capable of carrying up to 45 lbs. and walking 5 mph. Pretty cool, but I am thinking that my wife’s laundry baskets may weigh up to 60 lbs. At least, it seems they weigh that much to me when I carry each basket upstairs everyday.

In recent developments of different prototypes, Optimus showed big progress “Optimus autonomy through vision-based training, enabling prototypes to perform unsupervised tasks in factory environments, including the handling and sorting of battery cells at its facilities.” I also understand that Optimus is being trained in the Kung Fu arts. So, Optimus could defend homes and businesses when not performing other repetitive tasks that humans would prefer robots to do.

However, I wish to point out battery assembly is one kind of task, but I need to know if Optimus can carry my wife’s laundry baskets upstairs. That’s certainly a repetitive task and it seems to me I do it 4 or 5 times a week.

As mentioned, Tesla is projecting to start selling Optimus Robots sometime in 2026, and is gearing up to sell a million units by 2030. In the meantime, I have a few questions about how Optimus is going to work out for me. $20,000 is a big investment and it surely is important to know how this robot is going to do a bunch of stuff that I don’t want to do.

So here goes with my questions:

1. Can Optimus carry things up and down stairs and do all of the tasks that I wrote in my 10 point Home List.
2. What happens if Optimus falls?
3. What will be the final cost to consumers?
4. Do I have to charge Optimus up every night or can it be recharged like Klara, the A.F. (Artificial Friend) with built-in solar cells described in the novel, “Klara and The Sun” by Ishiguro Kazuo.
5. Can Optimus use his future Kung Fu skills to ward off home invaders?
6. Can I expect to pay any repair costs if Optimus breaks down or if Optimus falls down the stairs?
7. Will Optimus need oil changes?
8. Will Optimus always do the tasks I ask it to do?
9. Or will Optimus develop an attitude and decide what it wants to do?
10. How long can I expect Optimus to last?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I am mighty interested in getting one of Mr. Musk’s Optimus robots, presuming it can do the many tasks I listed above.

One last concern, I am not sure I can afford the $20,000 for an Optimus Robot. I know that is a pretty good price for a robot that can do all of the things Mr. Musk says it will do, but $20,000 is more than my social security payments for year and word is, they might go away someday.

I heard Mr. Musk say he could give every American one million dollars and still have 7 billion dollars left over. Wow, that is really impressive. And I understand Mr. Musk is going to raise $800,000,000,000 for his Rocket Ship Company, X. That’s a chunk of change.

I do know some people have questioned Mr. Musk’s math – 340,000,000 people in the U.S. times $1,000,000 equals $340,000,000,000,000. Oops, that looks more like 340 trillion dollars. I don’t think Mr. Musk yet has that much money. According to Wikipedia, Mr. Musk worth was only $470,000,000,000 as of October 2025. Let’s throw in the 800 billion Mr. Musk is raising for X. Well, he still is shy 339 trillion dollars.

Actually, if you do the math, Mr. Musk could afford to give every American $3,000 and still have $250 billion left. And that’s before his take home pay of one trillion dollars from Tesla in the next ten years. So, don’t cry for Mr. Musk…he’ll be OK.

I think I have a better suggestion, give the first one million AI Optimus robots to one million Americans. That would only cost Mr. Musk 20 billion dollars, leaving him with one trillion and 250 billion dollars, if the reports of his current fortune are correct. And again, that would be before his 1 trillion dollar payout from Tesla in the next ten years.

That way, Mr. Musk doesn’t have to sweat the small stuff and at least 1,000,000 people are happy, wealthy and wise. Of course, since I suggested this great idea, I want to be one of the one million people who gets an Optimus robot.

I can’t wait to get for Optimus to start taking out the trash.

Sent from my iPad