Elon Musk: At least 1 billion humanoid robots in the next decade, scenarios include elder care, child supervision, and one-on-one tutoring
Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave a 25-minute interview to China Global Television Network, stating that Xi Jinping is an outstanding leader and that China has prospered greatly during his tenure. The Shanghai Gigafactory is a gem, with excellent quality and efficiency, and its magic comes from the Chinese team. The factory has produced over 4.5 million vehicles, accounting for about 45% of Tesla's global production, with nearly 468,000 deliveries in the first half of 2026, a year-on-year increase of 28.4%, and exports surpassing domestic sales for the first time.
He discussed the advancement of Cybercab and mentioned that Grok releases a version approximately every one to two months, with Grokbot now integrated into his Tesla. He assessed that the overall performance of Chinese models is excellent, potentially the best in the world under limited computing power, and roughly estimated that within two to three years, lithography and chip manufacturing will resolve computing power constraints; China's electricity generation has surpassed that of the US, Europe, and India combined. He proposed the establishment of a US-China AI Safety Working Committee, stating that regulation is only effective if applied fairly to all countries.
Regarding humanoid robots, he predicted at least 1 billion units within ten years, possibly much sooner, estimating that if production doubles approximately every year, there could be around 10 billion in 15 years and about 100 billion in 20 years. Scenarios include elder care, child supervision, and one-on-one tutoring; one person could manage hundreds or even thousands of physical robots and digital agents, discussing widespread high income, suggesting that money may not be as important in the future. Data from SpaceX and Tesla is used as a source for real-world AI training, while Neuralink is utilized to enhance human-machine bandwidth. His educational advice is to broaden the gap between liberal arts and engineering to pose better questions to AI.
He suggested that Americans should first visit Shanghai and Beijing, then take the high-speed train to see the scenery, stating that no words can match China's grandeur. The interview coincided with the upcoming meeting between the US and Chinese leaders, and he simultaneously called for lower tariffs and reduced trade restrictions.
In terms of market mechanisms, the buyers are Tesla and robot customers needing Shanghai's capacity, China's supply chain, and grid scale, while the sellers are Musk's system, which packages factories, models, and Optimus into the same narrative. The event was driven by an official media interview, with expectations shifting from car deliveries to the scale of humanoid robots and the timeline for closing the computing power gap; beneficiaries are companies that can connect manufacturing, electricity, and real-world data, while those under pressure are narratives relying solely on chip bans to maintain gaps.
Source: Public information
ABAB AI Insight
Musk links the Shanghai factory, China's power grid, and unit computing efficiency into the same supply chain: cars are current cash, while robots represent the next table turning manufacturing advantages into labor substitutes. Praising leadership and the team serves to maintain political permission for this capacity and export hub. Grok's monthly iterations and Grokbot's integration into vehicles are about feeding fleet data back into the model and then sending the model back to the physical world.
The capital path is to first use Shanghai's 45% cumulative production to prove manufacturing, then use electricity generation comparisons to demonstrate future computing power limits, and finally use 1 billion to 100 billion robots to discount time to Optimus and supplier audits. The judgment of solving lithography in two to three years effectively sets an expiration date on export controls. The proposal for an AI safety committee aims to make regulation a bilateral entry condition rather than a unilateral ban.
A similar structure was used in the past for SpaceX financing with a Mars timeline and for FSD valuation with a Robotaxi timeline: first providing a scale that the market cannot negate through linear extrapolation, then allowing the supply chain to prepare materials according to this scale. The industry is in an expansion phase transitioning from an electric vehicle export hub to a humanoid robot manufacturing race, with pricing power resting on electricity, chips, and factory yield, not on interview rhetoric.
Structurally, this belongs to technological substitution. The mechanism is that if the assumption of doubling robot numbers annually holds, the scarcity of wages and currency decreases, and manufacturing advantages shift from 'making cars for people' to 'making robots for robots.' Whoever first locks real-world data and electricity scale into the same system will be the first to relocate labor pricing power.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- Unit computing efficiency determines who catches up before total bans.
- When factories account for half of production, diplomatic rhetoric also serves as capacity insurance.
- Once the assumption of robots doubling annually is established, money is no longer a scarce constraint.