After being outspoken about technology for decades, it should come as little shock to most that Elon Musk is all for robots being rolled out to be in service of humans. At least, that seems to be his goal with the Tesla Optimus robot. He shared a video of the robot “learning kung fu” in a post on X (formerly Twitter), and people were not impressed.
OK, maybe some were impressed because, hello, it’s an actual robot in real life. But after that wore off, others commented about how Elon’s robots are actually pretty terrifying.
Have none of us seen I, Robot? While that movie is more fiction than anything, it has made it hard for some not to worry about what having robots in everyday life means for, well, everyday life.
Elon Musk is apparently determined to make robots a thing.
Tesla Optimus learning Kung Fu pic.twitter.com/ziEuiiKWn7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2025
In Elon’s video, a trainer appears to teach a Tesla Optimus robot different moves in kung fu, but without actually making major physical contact with the robot. Elon then cleared up in comments under the post that the robot is AI-powered and not tele-operated.
This means the idea of these kidneys of robots is even more terrifying for those who are not ready to embrace Tesla Optimus robots.
According to Foxglove, tele-operated means something is operated by a human, either remotely or in the presence of the device or, in this case, robot. If something is tele-operated, it means it requires human directives for everything. AI-powered means the Tesla Optimus robots are able to make decisions independently. Again, terrifying.
One user commented on Elon’s X post with a GIF of a robot uprising and wrote, “Pretty sure there were several movies made indicating why this is a terrible idea.”
Someone else said, “This won’t end well” and added an edited photo of The Terminator‘s Sarah Connor watching a phone with the video of Elon’s robot learning kung fu.
Another user asked, without adding any criticism, “What if it kung fu’s the wrong people?”
To that, someone responded that they had the same thought.
And that’s what the main concern is here. If Elon is creating these robots for use in the world, much like AI already helps people daily, where does it end? That’s what some people are afraid of, especially since the only frame of reference we have are robot sci-fi movies where the robots end up taking over in the end.
According to Fortune, Tesla’s master plan in September 2025 outlined how much emphasis will eventually be put on these robots.
“This next chapter in Tesla’s story will help create a world we’ve only just begun to imagine and will do so at a scale that we have yet to see,” Tesla’s plan said. “We are building the products and services that bring AI into the physical world.”
For now, it looks like the main plan is for Elon to be able to use these robots for use internally rather than for immediate sale to the public.
It’s unclear how that would even work or how much an actual Tesla Optimus robot would cost an average everyday person. CoinCentral reported that Elon had plans to make thousands of robots in 2025, but a number of reasons, including hardware issues, stopped that plan.
So, for now, we are safe from that robot uprising.
