It's difficult when you're the best salesperson on the planet to find yourself in a situation where you can't sell a product you believe in.
You may boast of its merits, explain that this product is revolutionary and that it will change the daily life of humanity, but no one, apart from you of course, pays attention to it.
The worst is if you are the one who managed to convince consumers that the world has to abandon gasoline cars and diesel vehicles, because they pollute, are hard to manufacture don't give the value or safety of electric vehicles whose prices and cost are expensive.
In addition to this feat, you are one the one who has reawakened the dream of conquering space.
Musk Annoyed
This is the situation in which Elon Musk, the CEO of high-end electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla (TSLA), finds himself.
The richest man in the world has been trying for several months now to try to convince the world that Optimus, the humanoid robot that Tesla is developing, will completely change our lives.
But no one is paying attention.
Musk was particularly annoyed at by this indifference during Tesla's first-quarter earnings conference call.
"I was surprised that people did not realize the magnitude of the Optimus robot program," the tech tycoon said during the call, visibly annoyed.
"The importance of Optimus will become apparent in the coming years. Those who are insightful or listen carefully will understand that Optimus ultimately will be worth more than the car business, worth more than FSD," Musk added referring to Tesla's Full Self-Driving assistance system, which costs $12,000.
"That's my firm belief," the billionaire concluded.
But the first Optimus that the world saw was a human in a robot suit the company unveiled in August 2021. It was nearly six feet tall and weighed 125 pounds — or rather, the person in the robot suit did.
The Tesla Bot, as it was dubbed, would use the same artificial-intelligence (AI) systems that helped power Tesla vehicles, Musk said at the time.
During the 2021 fourth quarter earnings' call in January, Musk said Optimus is the next big product Tesla is working on in 2022.
"I think actually the most important product development we're doing this year is actually the Optimus humanoid robot. This, I think, has the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time," he said.
"If you think about the economy, it is, the foundation of the economy is labor. Capital equipment is distilled labor. So what happens if you don't actually have a labor shortage? I'm not sure what an economy even means at that point. That's what Optimus is about, so very important."
Optimus to Replace Humans in Factories
Optimus is Musk's desire and wish to replace humans with robots in his factories.
He's been talking about it for several years, but, as he admitted in 2018, sometimes too much automation is a "mistake."
Recently, the serial entrepreneur said he will be able to start large commercialization of a humanoid robot in 2023.
"Could you imagine that one day we would be able to download our human brain capacity into an Optimus?" Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, asked Musk in a recent interview
"I think it is possible," Musk responded.
"Which would be a different way of eternal life, because we would download our personalities into a bot," Döpfner continued.
Musk agreed, and then added:
"Yes, we could download the things that we believe make ourselves so unique. Now, of course, if you're not in that body anymore, that is definitely going to be a difference, but as far as preserving our memories, our personality, I think we could do that."
Besides their use in Tesla factories where they will perform repetitive tasks, Musk sees other uses for these robots.
"Optimus is a general purpose, sort of worker-droid. The initial role must be in work that is repetitive, boring, or dangerous. Basically, work that people don't want to do," the billionaire explained.
A prototype Optimus will be ready by the end of the year and Tesla plans to market it from 2023, promised Musk.
