Elon Musk says Tesla is working hard to scale what will end up being its biggest product in his eyes: Optimus.

Tesla Optimus is the company’s humanoid robot project, which was first announced several years ago but has gained more relevance and become a larger focus over the past year.

Tesla truly had its big breakout with Optimus last year at its “We, Robot” event in October, where it was used to serve drinks, provide entertainment, and mingle with attendees.

Tesla’s next-gen Optimus prototype with Grok revealed

However, it has been a challenge for Tesla to truly scale Optimus and, although it has huge plans for production numbers, certain parts of the project have proven to be more difficult than others.

One of the most notable things is that of its hands, as Tesla wants them to be nimble enough to thread a needle.

This has proven to be very difficult.

Scaling production and refining manufacturing are also likely challenges. Musk says Tesla is “working hard on scaling Optimus,” something that is a crucial issue to solve as the project is a major contributor to the company’s future.

Musk said:

🚨 Tesla has big plans for Optimus production

It has plans for an annual production run-rate of 1 million by 2030

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Earlier this year, the plan was to build 5,000 in 2025

Elon Musk has said Optimus should make up roughly 80% of Tesla’s value https://t.co/nAMKGq4yGz pic.twitter.com/NIGUKH248i

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 27, 2025

Musk has made some pretty tremendous predictions for Optimus and how important it could be to Tesla in the future.

Earlier this month, he said Optimus will make up about 80 percent of the company’s value in the future. In January, he also noted during Tesla’s Q4 2024 Earnings Call that Optimus would be “overwhelmingly the value of the company.”

Elon Musk details Tesla’s road to selling Optimus and Robotaxi affordably

He has not only talked about Optimus’s importance in terms of money and revenue. He also said it would be “the biggest product of all-time by far,” because of its ability to revolutionize human life. He said it would be like “having your own personal C-3PO and R2-D2.”

Tesla pleaded with the Trump White House not to bail on crucial climate standards that would help keep vehicle emissions in check, warning of human dangers related to greenhouse gases.

Tesla wrote that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent proposal to roll back standards for tailpipe emissions would be a major setback in the fight to limit damage to the climate.

It suggested that abandoning the standards “would give a pass to engine and vehicle manufacturers for all measurement, control, and reporting of GHG emissions for any highway engine and vehicle,” Reuters said in its report.

Trump has been a critic of environmental standards, and earlier this week, during a speech with the U.N., said that climate change was “the greatest con-job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion.”

NOW – Trump: “Climate change— it’s the greatest con-job ever perpetrated on the world.” pic.twitter.com/BZp9jX0d9w

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 23, 2025

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Tesla’s tone on the potential rollback of climate standards was countered by that of General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, and “nearly all other major automakers,” who requested the EPA delay the emissions goals.

Tesla stands to gain a lot from the emissions push. Other automakers simply cannot compete with Tesla’s tech, charging infrastructure, or self-driving program, and they have a significant advantage as they started developing EV tech more than a decade ago.

Legacy automakers, on the other hand, have continued to develop EVs, but have not managed to manufacture anything of extreme interest to most car buyers.

Individually, they have not dented Tesla’s market share in the U.S., but collectively, because of more offerings and improvements to their lineups, they have managed to take some of Tesla’s sales away.

It’s taken all of them to truly compete with Tesla in the big picture. However, the other companies still need to rely on combustion engine vehicles, at least in the short term, to generate revenue.

Since these companies are not meeting emissions targets, they are required to pay Tesla for compliance credits, which the company generated $2.8 billion in revenue from last year.

GM to pay $145.8 million fee for excess emissions

Tesla said in its letter that the EPA’s consideration of rolling back standards is destructive to the innovation of the automotive industry:

“[It] undermines the stability of this program, diminishes the value of performance-based incentives that electric vehicle manufacturers accrue under the standards, and creates an uneven playing field – reducing the inducement for investment in vehicle innovation.”

With President Trump’s skepticism on the issue of vehicle emissions, things don’t look like they will go in Tesla’s favor with this particular request.

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a new Street-high price target from Wedbush’s Dan Ives today, who cited high hopes for the company’s prowess in the autonomous sector.

Ives boosted his price target from $500 to $600 today, reflecting the firm’s view that “an accelerated AI path for the company is now on the horizon and investors are underestimating the transformation underway at the company.”

In a new note written to investors on Friday, Ives cited that Tesla’s next stage of growth has arrived as Elon Musk has re-entered his role as a “wartime CEO,” which gives the company a huge advantage over its competitors.

Musk, when fully committed to Tesla, does his best work, and Ives believes the company’s mark on the autonomous sector will continue to expand with the help of the Trump White House.

He wrote:

“Musk is now driving Tesla into its next stage of growth as ‘wartime CEO,’ and we expect Robotaxis to be rolled out aggressively to over 30 US cities within the next year. We estimate the AI and autonomous opportunity is worth at least $1 trillion alone for Tesla, and we fully expect under a Trump White House over the coming yea,r these key initiatives will now get fast-tracked as the federal regulatory spiderweb that Musk & Co. have encountered over the past few years around FSD/autonomous clears significantly under Trump. Trump wants the US to stay ahead of China in this AI Arms Race, and autonomous is a key factor in who wins AI….with Tesla playing a major role on Robotaxis.”

Most of the note focused on the long-term outlook for Tesla, which is where some of the most drastic claims were made, including ones that estimated a monstrous valuation for the company moving forward.

Ives said Wedbush is under the impression that Tesla could reach a $2 trillion market cap as early as the beginning of 2026 and a $3 trillion valuation by the end of the year. This growth will be primarily driven by the AI portion of the company’s projects:

“We believe Tesla could reach a $2 trillion market cap early 2026 in a bull case scenario and $3 trillion by the end of 2026 as full-scale volume production begins of the autonomous and robotics roadmap. The AI valuation will start to get unlocked in the Tesla story, and we believe the march to an AI-driven valuation for TSLA over the next 6-9 months has now begun in our view with FSD and autonomous penetration of Tesla’s installed base and the acceleration of Cybercab in the US representing the golden goose for Musk & Co.”

In the near term, the only true issue at hand is deliveries, which Tesla should likely have a strong quarter thanks to the removal of the $7,500 EV tax credit. Ives says he expects a beat of Q3 numbers, driven by an “improving demand out of China.”

He also said that while he expects this quarter to be strong, Tesla should aim to return to a run-rate of 500,000 deliveries every quarter, equating to approximately 2 million units per year. This will be driven by new, more affordable models, with the tax credit going away:

“On the near-term delivery front we are seeing a stabilization of demand globally that should enable Tesla to beat the Street’s 3Q delivery number with improving demand out of China. Getting back to a ~500k quarterly run-rate will be important as Tesla now looks to introduce new models to its customer base in 2026. There continues to be weak pockets in Europe but we believe Tesla is now starting to see signs of improvement in demand with a stronger growth trajectory into 2026.”

Tesla shares are up over 1.7 percent so far today, trading at around $430.