Elon Musk's Half-Baked Robot Is a Clunky First Step

Elon Musk has been promising the world a humanoid robot called Optimus for more than a year, but the two prototypes unveiled last week did not exactly dazzle with agility. The company's most advanced robot--made with all Tesla components and close to production-ready, according to Musk--waved unsteadily before being shoved across the stage by three human helpers. "This means a future of abundance, a future where there is no poverty, where you can have whatever you want," Musk said of the machine, which was mounted on a stand and cannot yet walk on its own. "It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization." A second humanoid robot, described by Musk as for "rough development" and made from a mixture of Tesla and off-the-shelf parts, was able to walk forward--very unsteadily.