Tesla Employees Balk at Training Optimus Humanoid Robots as Potential Replacements for Their Jobs

Ars Technica•Published: Sep 26, 2026 02:40 AM IST

Tesla is facing significant internal and technical hurdles as it pivots from automotive manufacturing to the mass production of its Optimus humanoid robot. Employees at the company's California and Texas facilities have expressed frustration over being required to train the very machines designed to replace their labor, leading Tesla to shift data collection to dedicated teams.

Manufacturing Hurdles: The production of the Optimus V3 model is plagued by assembly line precision issues and the extreme complexity of robotic hands, which require over 100 small components.
Labor Resistance: Factory workers have pushed back against the requirement to wear motion-capture suits for imitation learning, forcing Tesla to establish specialized training hubs.
Production Targets: Despite current manufacturing bottlenecks and reliability issues with touch sensors, Tesla aims to scale production to 1,000 robots per week by the end of 2026.

The Context & Background

Tesla has already ceased production of the Model S and Model X at its Fremont factory to reallocate engineering and labor resources toward the robotics division. This transition reflects Elon Musk's high-stakes bet on AI and general-purpose robotics as the future of the company's business model.

Why it matters:The friction at Tesla highlights the broader societal and economic tension surrounding AI-driven automation in the workforce. As companies race to deploy humanoid robots, the challenge of balancing technical engineering requirements with employee morale and supply chain dependencies remains a critical hurdle for the future of industrial automation.

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