When will Tesla Optimus be for sale?

Tesla has not said when you will be able to buy Optimus for your home. Its latest statement, from the third-quarter earnings call on October 21 to 22, 2026, is that outside customers should start receiving robots around the end of 2027, beginning with dangerous, repetitive or round-the-clock industrial work. In January 2026 Elon Musk said Tesla would likely be selling humanoid robots to the public by the end of 2027. That is the earliest public-sale date Tesla has put on record, and Musk tied it to conditions.

Everything below is what Tesla or Musk said publicly, with the date and where we read it. We have left out unsourced rumors.

The dated record

What Musk said at Davos

On January 22, 2026, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Musk said: “By the end of next year, I think we’ll be selling humanoid robots to the public.” He tied it to being “confident that it’s very high reliability, very high safety” and high functionality, so that “you can basically ask it to do anything you’d like.” He said Optimus was doing simple tasks in Tesla’s factory and expected more complex industrial tasks by the end of 2026, before any consumer rollout. He also named childcare, pet care and elder care as long-term uses. Fox Business reported all of this; the end-of-2027 date is the article’s reading of “end of next year.”

What changed in October 2026

At the third-quarter call, Musk moved the first deliveries to outside companies, not households, to around the end of 2027. Electrek reports that he said the AI, the electromechanical design and reliability must be solved first. He called the hand the main issue: the fingers must be gentle with delicate objects and survive constant wear, and a robot cannot self-repair like skin. He also said the design needs tweaks to make the robot safe, reliable and durable enough not to wear out after a month, and that significant AI work remains for open-ended tasks.

On production, TechCrunch reports that Musk called it “early production” and said the ramp would be slow and “somewhat bumpy because it is such a radically new product.” Tesla’s target is 20,000 robots a week by the end of 2027, according to TechCrunch, while Electrek’s account of the call says reaching about 20,000 a week will take at least a year, possibly longer, because parts of the design are still changing. The Fremont line is designed for about one million robots a year. Musk also promised a video “within a month or two” showing tasks that are not pre-programmed, and said Tesla plans to put its AI5 chip in Optimus around April 2027.

Why late 2027 is a stretch

The numbers Tesla has given are internally consistent: 20,000 robots a week is about 1.04 million a year, which matches the roughly one million a year the Fremont line is designed for. Reaching that rate is a different matter. Musk said the ramp depends on the slowest part among roughly 10,000 unique parts on a new line, and that the 2026 rate is “literally impossible to predict.” Electrek reports the hand and forearm have more than 100 small parts assembled by hand, citing The Information, and that custom gears still raise reliability concerns. Tesla lacks a robot data fleet like its car fleet, so it plans to build 10,000 to 20,000 robots for practice in an “Optimus Academy.” Wikipedia adds that a second-generation line in Texas is being designed for 10 million robots a year starting in 2027. Those are plans, not output.

What Tesla has not said

• A price. Musk’s $20,000 to $30,000 figure from 2024 was a long-term, at-scale estimate, and I-Programmer notes first units are likely to cost more. See the price guide.
• A reservation or order page. The coverage and Tesla materials we could open mention none. Check tesla.com/optimus for any change after November 1, 2026.
• A Gen 3 unveiling date. The reveal slipped from Q1 2026 to “middle of this year” and then to “closer to production,” per Wikipedia. We could not confirm a date.
• A home product. Every near-term plan Tesla has stated is industrial.

How to read these dates

Tesla’s timelines have moved before. In 2024 the plan was limited production in 2025 and possible outside sales in 2026. In January 2025 it was 10,000 robots that year; Electrek notes Musk later admitted none were doing useful work. Treat 2027 as a goal that depends on the hand, durability and AI, which Musk named himself.

If Tesla hits its plan, the sequence in Musk’s own words is: factory use in Tesla plants, outside industrial customers around the end of 2027, and then the public. A household buying Optimus in 2027 is not supported by anything Tesla has said. That is our inference, not a Tesla statement.

What to watch next

1. The promised video of non-pre-programmed tasks, due “within a month or two” of the October call.
2. An official Optimus V3 unveiling date.
3. The AI5 chip in Optimus around April 2027.
4. The Giga Texas plant, expected around summer 2027.
5. A price, a reservation page or an independent report of an outside customer receiving a robot.

If you want a home humanoid you can reserve today, see 1X NEO, and read can you buy a humanoid robot today. The Optimus tracker page holds the current status.