Elon Musk made a surprise appearance at the 2026 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos today, sitting down for an on-stage interview that touched on everything from Tesla’s evolving mission to self-driving cars, humanoid robots, and the future of energy. The interview wasn’t heavily promoted ahead of time, making Musk’s presence at the global gathering a bit of an unexpected moment for attendees and viewers alike.
During the discussion, Musk framed Tesla’s long-term goals around its new mission of “sustainable abundance,” a future where clean energy, automation, and AI-driven systems dramatically improve quality of life without exhausting planetary resources. One of the most eye-catching comments centered on solar power. Musk said the SpaceX and Tesla teams are independently working toward manufacturing 100 gigawatts of solar power annually in the U.S., adding that hitting that scale will “probably take us about three years.” If achieved, that would represent a massive acceleration in domestic solar production.
Musk also shared updates on Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot. According to him, Tesla already has Optimus robots performing simple tasks inside its factories today. He said more complex factory work should arrive later this year, and that Tesla could begin selling humanoid robots to the public sometime next year. It’s one of the clearest timelines Musk has given so far for Optimus moving beyond internal testing.
Tesla is expected to unveil a production-intent Optimus V3 prototype sometime in the coming months. Musk recently also noted that early production for both Optimus and the company’s upcoming Cybercab robotaxi will be “agonizingly slow” due to new components and manufacturing processes.
On autonomy, Musk reiterated his confidence in Tesla’s self-driving efforts, stating that “self-driving is essentially a solved problem at this point.” He added that Tesla hopes to secure approval for supervised Full Self-Driving in Europe as soon as next month, with China potentially following on a similar timeline. The comments reinforce Tesla’s view that regulatory hurdles, not technical ones, are now the primary bottleneck. Tesla has been internally testing “unsupervised” FSD with its Robotaxi fleet in Austin, Texas, as of late.
Musk closed the interview on a philosophical note, encouraging optimism about the future. He said he would urge people to be excited about what’s coming, arguing that it’s better for quality of life to be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.
If you want the full context and tone behind Musk’s remarks, check out his complete interview from the 2026 World Economic Forum, which dives deeper into each of these topics.
