SAN DIEGO, Dec 9 — A leaked video of a Tesla Optimus robot falling during a demonstration has gone viral, not because it fell, but because of a mysterious final gesture: as it toppled, the robot moved its hands to its face in a motion that observers say perfectly mimics a human removing a VR headset.
The clip has ignited intense online debate over whether the humanoid robot was acting autonomously, as Tesla claims, or was being secretly controlled by a human operator, Interesting Engineering reported.
The incident occurred during a recent “Autonomy Visualized” event in Miami, where the robot was handing out water bottles to attendees. The footage shows Optimus becoming unstable, dropping items, and then falling backward.
While falls are common in robotics development, it was the robot’s hand motion as it fell that caught the eye of researchers and industry watchers.
The gesture is a hallmark of teleoperated robots controlled via VR interfaces, leading to widespread speculation that the demonstration was not a true display of the robot’s autonomous capabilities.
Musk’s denial and a flood of updates
The controversy comes just as Tesla has been ramping up its public demonstrations of Optimus’s progress.
In a recent update on Dec 3, the company shared a new video of the robot running in a lab, and an earlier clip showed it performing basic kung-fu motions.
Elon Musk has repeatedly rejected suggestions that the demonstrations are faked. In response to one recent video, he stated it was “AI, not tele-operated.”
Tesla has ambitious plans for the Optimus, with Musk estimating a future price of between US$20,000 and US$30,000.
He has projected deploying 5,000 of the humanoid robots by the end of 2025, positioning them as a key part of the future of automated manufacturing.
However, this latest incident has raised fresh questions about the goals.
