Overview

• Insiders say Tesla shifted Optimus in late June to rely on video recordings of humans performing tasks, replacing motion-capture suits and teleoperation.
• Ashok Elluswamy now leads the program after Milan Kovac’s departure, with a brief hiring pause followed by more than 50 Optimus-related roles posted.
• Workers capture demonstrations using in-house rigs with five cameras mounted on a helmet and backpack to record environment context and fine hand movements.
• The strategy aligns with Elon Musk’s vision-only playbook for self-driving, and he has said Optimus will require roughly ten times the training of Tesla’s cars.
• Robotics researchers caution that video-only data lacks the physical interaction signals provided by teleoperation, making real-world skill transfer more difficult.