Tesla has finally released its ‘Master Plan Part 4’ and it’s nothing more than a smorgasbord of AI promises about its humanoid robot, which can’t even serve popcorn.
For more than a year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been teasing the release of his ‘Master Plan Part 4’ for the company.
Since 2006, Musk has been releasing “secret master plans” for Tesla to explain the company’s broader mission and product roadmap.
Musk himself recently admitted that Master Plan Part 2, released in 2016, is not even completed yet. He believes that will happen “next year”, but we heard that one before.
Master Plan Part 3 was released in 2023, and it was about scaling when, in fact, Tesla’s electric vehicle sales have been in decline since then. They peaked in 2023.
Now, ‘Master Plan Part 4’ was released on X, and it’s all about “sustainable abundance” through AI and robotics.
Here it is:
Introduction
Since Tesla’s founding, each iteration of our master plan has focused on our north star: to deliver unconstrained sustainability without compromise.
Humans are toolmakers. At Tesla, we make physical products at scale and at a low cost with the goal of making life better for everyone. As the influence and impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technology increases, the mission set forth in Master Plan Part IV should come as no surprise.
This next chapter in Tesla’s story will help create a world we’ve only just begun to imagine and will do so at a scale that we have yet to see. We are building the products and services that bring AI into the physical world.
We have been working tirelessly for nearly two decades to create the foundation for this technological renaissance through the development of electric vehicles, energy products and humanoid robots.
Now, we are combining our manufacturing capabilities with our autonomous prowess to deliver new products and services that will accelerate global prosperity and human thriving driven by economic growth shared by all. We are unifying our hardware and software at scale, and in doing so, we are creating a safer, cleaner and more enjoyable world.
This is sustainable abundance.
Guiding principles
Growth is infinite.
Growth in one area does not require decline in another. Shortages in resources can be remedied by improved technology, greater innovation and new ideas.
The technologies that gave us the ability to power machines led to industrial revolutions that have widened our economic landscape, creating more opportunities for all. Groundbreaking inventions like the semiconductor and the internet have expanded—not diminished—social and economic opportunities across all aspects of the human experience, from creating more jobs to providing greater access to information to enabling deeper interpersonal connections.
Our desire to push beyond what is considered achievable will foster the growth needed for truly sustainable abundance.
Innovation removes constraints.
For centuries, humanity’s primary mode of transportation was the horse. Then, over the last fifty-plus years, cars with internal combustion engines powered by fossil fuels became the standard and expected transportation method. The idea that batteries could be produced affordably and at a scale large enough to pivot the transportation industry away from fossil fuels seemed a fool’s errand—until Tesla led the way forward.
Through continued innovation, we have overcome the technological constraints of battery development and built an industry powered by renewable resources.
Technology solves tangible problems.
The products and services born out of the acceleration toward sustainable abundance will advance humanity by solving real-world problems. To further accelerate our innovation, we build each product more efficiently and more sustainably than the last.
Solar energy generation and large-scale battery storage are increasing the availability and reliability of clean electricity in our communities—and are doing so more affordably and more sustainably.
Autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.
Optimus—our autonomous humanoid robot—is changing not only the perception of labor itself but its availability and capability. Jobs and tasks that are particularly monotonous or dangerous can now be accomplished by other means. In this way, Optimus’s mission is to give people back more time to do what they love.
Autonomy must benefit all of humanity.
The tools we make at Tesla help us build the products that advance human prosperity.
How we develop and use autonomy—and the new capabilities it makes available to us—should be informed by its ability to enhance the human condition. Making daily life better—and safer—for all people through our autonomous technology has always been, and continues to be, our focus.
Greater access drives greater growth.
Making technologically advanced products that are affordable and available at scale is required to build a flourishing and unconstrained society. It serves to further democratize society while raising everyone’s quality of life in the process. The hallmark of meritocracy is creating opportunities that enable each person to use their skills to accomplish whatever they imagine.
Everyone deserves access to these opportunities, and technological growth can help ensure that each of us is able to maximize our most limited resource: time.
We’re accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable abundance.
We must make one thing clear: this challenge will be extremely difficult to overcome. The elimination of scarcity will require tireless and exquisite execution. Some will perceive it as impossible. And plenty of others will laud every obstacle and setback we inevitably encounter along the way. But once we overcome this challenge, our critics will come to see that what they once thought was impossible is indeed possible. And that will be fine with us, because what matters most is that, together, we create a sustainable and truly abundant future for generations to come.
All worthwhile journeys are long. And they all begin with a first step.
Our first step was to make an exciting sports car—Roadster. Then we leveraged those profits to fund the development and production of more affordable, yet still exciting products—Model S and Model X. Then we repeated the process, bringing us to Model 3 and Model Y and onward.
This process required us to take many steps, some of them small and others large. But ultimately each win led to another win, and even with our failures, we were able to keep building momentum. Our momentum allowed us to build out a fully integrated ecosystem of sustainable products, from transport to energy generation, battery storage and robotics.
Today we are on the cusp of a revolutionary period primed for unprecedented growth. And this time it will not be a single step but a leap forward for Tesla and humanity as a whole. The tools we are going to develop will help us build the kind of world that we’ve always dreamed of—a world of sustainable abundance—by redefining the fundamental building blocks of labor, mobility and energy at scale and for all.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is lost as a company. This is a bunch of utopic nonsense, complete with AI “abundance” buzzwords that Grok could have easily written.
Elon’s first two master plans were straightforward, featuring clear, actionable steps and a well-defined product roadmap.
In comparison, this is opium meant for Tesla shareholders to get their fix of potential “infinite growth” as an AI stock. It’s not real.
Everyone can see the value in an affordable humanoid robot capable of autonomously performing useful tasks. You don’t need to sell people on a weird utopic future around it. Start by demonstrating that you can create such a robot.
We have seen no evidence of that yet.
All of Tesla’s Optimus robot demonstrations have been supported by humans remotely controlling them. Most recently, Tesla had Optimus serving popcorn to guests at its diner in Los Angeles. It worked for a few hours on the first day, and the robot has reportedly been offline for a month since the restaurant’s launch.
I know I might sound like a hater, but I don’t care. Tesla is not a company that is about to deliver a future of “sustainable abundance”.
Tesla is a company that did the impossible and significantly accelerated the world’s transition to electric transportation. Then, its CEO went nuts. Sales started to go down, earnings began to drop, and to maintain a nonsensical stock price, the CEO decided to ride the AI bubble. That’s about it.
Tesla has unveiled "Master Plan Part 4," focusing on achieving sustainable abundance through AI and robotics, particularly its humanoid robot Optimus. However, critics argue that the plan lacks substance, with little evidence of actual progress in developing autonomous robots beyond remote-controlled demonstrations. The release is seen as an attempt to boost investor confidence rather than a realistic roadmap for technological advancement.
