Tesla’s Optimus robot distributes candy in Times Square

Trick-or-treating season is here. For some New Yorkers, their candy came from the hand of a Tesla robot.

On Monday, Tesla presented two of its future products in front of the Nasdaq building in Times Square. One of them was the Cybercab, a fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals that has not yet entered production. The other was Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot, also in development, which brought sugary treats.

New Yorkers filmed Optimus picking up small red and yellow bags from a table and handing them to passersby. The bags contained “gummies,” according to “Squawk Box” co-anchor Rebecca Quick.

Quick said that “once or twice he dropped them” but that “he came back for them.”

Tesla Chairman Robyn Denholm, who Quick was interviewing, agreed. “I’ve been in the lab with Optimus and he knows how to fold laundry,” she said.

At the demo in New York, Optimus seemed plugged in from the shoulders.

This isn’t the first time Optimus has handed out bags of candy. The robot also helped during the recent “Frunk or Treat” event for its employees.

In previous Optimus demos, Tesla’s humanoid robots were remotely operated. During a “We Robot” event in 2024, Tesla deployed several Optimus robots to work as bartenders.

Morgan Stanley analysts later wrote that the robots did not operate completely independently and “relyed on tele-operations” or humans who controlled them behind the scenes.

In June, insiders told Business Insider that the company was pursuing a vision-only approach for its Optimus program. Instead of training relying on teleoperation via motion capture suits and virtual reality headsets, Tesla decided to focus on recording videos of workers performing tasks to teach the robot.

Earlier this month, Optimus attended the premiere of “Tron: Ares.” During his third-quarter earnings conference call, CEO Elon Musk said the robot was not teleoperated during the event.

“No one controlled it, it was just Kung Fu with Jared Leto,” Musk said.

Commercializing Optimus is key to Tesla’s growth plan. In September, Musk predicted that 80% of Tesla’s value would ultimately come from Optimus. Earlier this year, he said Optimus had “the potential to reach revenues in excess of $10 trillion.”

“Optimus at scale is the infinite money problem,” Musk said during Tesla’s third-quarter earnings conference call. “There is a limit to what AI can do in terms of improving the productivity of humans. There is no real limit to embodied AI.”