Optimus will handle medical procedures beyond human capability, says Elon Musk

Musk is betting that Optimus will be more than a factory worker or companion bot.

Step aside, scalpel-wielding doctors: according to Elon Musk, the future of surgery belongs to robots.

In a recent discussion with investor Ron Baron, Musk laid out his bold vision for the Optimus humanoid robot developed by Tesla, Inc., arguing that it could perform “very sophisticated medical procedures, any medical procedure, perhaps things that humans can’t even do because they’re too difficult.”

Musk emphasised that the biggest bottleneck in healthcare is not money; it’s the limited number of top-tier surgeons.

“There are only so many highly skilled surgeons and specialists, and they don’t grow on trees. But now they all get built in factories,” he said. His argument: if humanoid robots like Optimus could be mass-manufactured and distributed globally, they might reduce the cost and scarcity of advanced care.

Key to this vision is the robot’s precision. Tesla has announced that the next version of the Optimus hand will use about 50 actuators, significantly more than the prototype’s 17, enabling the finer dexterity needed for delicate operations.

Musk noted this hardware leap is essential if the robot is to handle tasks that exceed human capability.

But let’s be clear: Optimus is not yet in an operating room. Musk himself admits the system is still an early-stage robotics project, primarily designed for factory and general-purpose tasks. Critics say that while immersive, the claims verge on speculative as robot-assisted surgery today still requires human oversight, and regulatory hurdles for autonomous medical robots are enormous.

Still, Musk frames his vision within Tesla’s broader mission of “sustainable abundance,” where automation frees humans from scarcity. In his view, robots delivering surgical precision at scale could reshape healthcare access. The underlying idea: if you make robots rather than rely on individual surgeons, you scale healthcare in the way manufacturing once scaled consumer goods.

Experts caution that many engineering, ethical and regulatory challenges remain. For example, any robot performing surgery must meet high standards of safety, reliability and transparency. While Musk’s talk of “superhuman” robotic surgeons captures imagination, the path between prototype and surgical theatre remains long and complex.

Musk is betting that Optimus will be more than a factory worker or companion bot. He sees it as the future of medicine, a world where robots deliver surgical care at a scale and precision humans cannot, if all goes according to plan.