Musk says no to a December Optimus waitlist after a Tesla conference partner said yes
A robotics investor whose conference Tesla sponsors says Optimus reservations open in early December. Musk answered with one word on X, and Tesla's own waitlist record is ten years of money in with no product out.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
A partner's date, a founder's one-word denial
Modar Alaoui, a robotics investor at ALM Ventures who runs the Humanoids Summit, told the San Francisco Standard that Tesla told him Optimus reservations open in early December, timed to his conference on December 1-2 in San Mateo, where Tesla−0.77% — Tesla, down 0.77 percent today is a key partner and plans to demo the Optimus V3, the robot's third generation 1. Musk's X account answered "No" on Friday afternoon, the same day the report ran; no time was given for either the report or the post 1. Tesla did not respond to the Standard's request for comment 1.
Alaoui is not a neutral listener: he published a book on the humanoid economy through Wiley on October 12 4. That does not make him wrong, but the sourcing chain now runs from a Tesla conference partner with a robot-industry franchise to sell, against a one-word denial from the chief executive.
The waitlist record is money in, product not out
A waitlist collects cash and promises a robot. Tesla has taken more than $50,000 per reservation for its Roadster for a decade without shipping a car 1. 1X, a Palo Alto robotics company, opened reservations for its $20,000 robot last year and has delivered none; Germany's Neura Robotics and the UK's Humanoid are in the same position 1.
The flying Roadster Tesla unveiled this month drew a "sideshow" verdict from a Car and Driver contributing editor who has covered electric vehicles for 20 years 2. How much an Optimus reservation would cost, if anything, is unknown 1. What the record shows is that Tesla has collected reservation money for products it has not delivered.
Tesla's Roadster list has held money for a decade with no deliveries
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Roadster (Tesla, since 2016) | 10 |
| 1X NEO (since 2025) | 1 |
| Optimus (not open) | 0 |
The fleet is a data cost before it is a product
Tesla's own production plan matters more than the list. Production has started on a high-volume line at Fremont, Tesla's California factory, in space that built the Model S and Model X until this spring, and Tesla says the robots coming off it are its first production-quality units 3.
But Musk says the AI, the electromechanical design and run time still have issues, and the first 10,000 to 20,000 robots exist to gather the training data the models need, not to ship 1 3. Output should reach 20,000 robots a week by roughly the end of 2027, with deliveries to outside companies around the end of next year 1 3. A December list adds no cash before 2028, and the first units are promised to companies, not the people lining up 1 3.
December 1-2 decides whether the list or the denial holds
The bull case deserves its say: a list at $20,000-plus would put consumers first in line for a consumer humanoid before any rival has shipped one to a U.S. customer, since Chinese makers deliver at home and American rivals' lists end in no deliveries either 1.
Watch December 1-2: a list opens at the Humanoids Summit and Alaoui's sourcing holds, or nothing opens and "No" holds 1. Musk has also promised a new Optimus video, driven by AI rather than scripted motions, within one or two months 3. Until a delivery schedule and a published price exist, buy Optimus on the schedule and the price, not on a list the chief executive has denied.
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