Tesla drops 4% as OpenAI robotics threat challenges Optimus vision

OpenAI's push into robotics places it on a collision course with Tesla's humanoid robot ambitions, threatening a key pillar of Elon Musk's long-term valuation thesis for the automaker.

Tesla Inc. shares fell as much as 4.1% in early trading Monday after OpenAI disclosed plans to expand into robotics, directly challenging Elon Musk's vision for the Optimus humanoid robot. The move signals that the most well-funded AI startup is now targeting physical-world automation, a market Tesla has been developing since 2021.

"The humanoid robotics market is becoming a two-horse race between Tesla and OpenAI, and OpenAI has a massive capital advantage," said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management. "Tesla's Optimus narrative was already speculative — this makes it harder to justify the premium."

OpenAI has raised more than $20 billion in cumulative funding, including a $6.6 billion round in October 2024 that valued the company at $157 billion. The startup's robotics division will leverage its GPT-5 large language model for real-world perception and manipulation tasks, according to a person familiar with the plans. Tesla's Optimus, first unveiled in prototype form in September 2022, has yet to enter commercial production.

The competitive threat arrives as Tesla's core automotive business faces its own pressures. The company delivered 1.63 million vehicles globally in 2025, with the Model 3 and Model Y accounting for the bulk of volume. In India, Tesla just launched the Model Y Premium RWD at ₹50.89 lakh ($61,000), its most affordable offering in the market, as it seeks growth beyond saturated Western markets. Meanwhile, the company withdrew a termination notice on a graphite supply deal with Australia's Syrah Resources on Monday, resolving a quality dispute over anode materials for its Louisiana battery facility.

Why Robotics Matters to Tesla's Valuation

Tesla trades at roughly 70 times trailing earnings, a multiple that reflects significant future value from projects beyond automotive — including Optimus, robotaxis, and energy storage. Musk has said he expects Optimus to become Tesla's most valuable business over time, projecting a total addressable market of 10 billion to 20 billion units. OpenAI's entry introduces a well-capitalized competitor with proven AI capabilities into that equation.

OpenAI's robotics effort benefits from existing infrastructure. The company's GPT-5 model, which scored 92.1% on the MMLU benchmark, can be adapted for robotic control tasks without the massive training overhead required to build a foundation model from scratch. Tesla, by contrast, must develop both the hardware and the embodied AI software in-house, a dual investment that could stretch engineering resources.

Investor Impact and What Comes Next

Tesla shares, which have declined roughly 25% from their 52-week high, now face an additional overhang. The robotics competition compounds existing concerns about slowing EV demand and Musk's divided attention across Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, and his other ventures. Musk recently merged xAI with SpaceX and has floated the idea of combining SpaceX with Tesla, a move that corporate governance experts say could further concentrate his control.

For investors, the key question is whether Tesla's first-mover advantage in humanoid hardware — the company has been testing Optimus in its factories since early 2024 — can offset OpenAI's edge in AI software. "Hardware is hard to replicate, but software moats in AI are getting deeper by the quarter," Munster said. "Tesla needs to show a working product at scale before OpenAI catches up on the hardware side."

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.