• Tesla’s robots that served drinks and talked to guests in the “We Robot” were partially controlled by humans.
• The robots’ performance quickly raised skepticism about their true capabilities and independence.
• Tesla plans to deploy the robots in its factories and sell them to both businesses and consumers.

Tesla’s robots may have wowed viewers at Thursday’s “We Robot” event by serving drinks, answering questions and playing rock-paper-scissors, but people quickly suspected the performance was too good to be true .

It turns out they were right.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk proudly showed off the latest version of his Optimus robots at the event, which were last seen sorting blocks and doing yoga poses in September. Musk, who said Tesla had made progress in humanoid robots, predicted they would be “the largest product of any kind ever.”

The robots walked in the spotlight, closely flanked by Tesla engineers.

“One of the things we wanted to show tonight is that Optimus is not a canned video, it’s not walled off,” Musk said. “The Optimus robots will walk among you. Please be nice to the Optimus robots. So you can walk straight up to them and they will serve drinks at the bar.”

Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note Friday that the robots did not operate completely independently and “relied on tele-ops,” or people controlling them behind the scenes.

“Overall, we didn’t see anything new/fresh on Optimus that clearly showed significant progress,” the analysts wrote. “Including small additional details of the company that the market was previously unaware of.”

Videos of guests’ interactions with the Optimus robots posted online highlighted that humans were involved.

One participant posted a video on

“I’m not fully autonomous yet,” the voice said, with a human-sounding trip over the word “autonomous.”

Another video showed a guest trying to get the robot to reveal how much of it was actually AI and not human. “I can’t reveal exactly how many, you’ll have to find out later,” the voice said. “I’d say there might be a few. I’m not going to confirm it, but it could be a few.’

While some commentators felt the human assistance was “obvious,” others said Tesla’s presentation was misleading.

Tesla influencer Jeremy Judkins wrote on

Josh Wolfe, co-founder of Lux Capital, also seemed to disapprove.

“It’s absolutely worth celebrating low-latency remotes, but completely unfair to demonstrate them as autonomous robots – call it the parlor trick that it is,” he wrote.

Tesla did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

Musk said he envisions a future where “Optimus robots will walk among you.” Tesla’s CEO expects it to become a homebody, likening it to a personal “Star Wars” R2-D2 or C3-PO that can pick up your groceries and watch your kids.

Musk, who has said he is “pathologically optimistic,” has also said that Optimus will push Tesla’s valuation into the trillions.

Tesla has said it has already deployed two Optimus robots on the factory floor, although it is unclear what tasks they perform. Tesla has said the humanoid robots will eventually be sold to both businesses and consumers.

Musk predicted an eventual price tag of $20,000 to $30,000 – “probably less than a car” – if it were produced at scale, which he said would take some time.

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