Musk: Grok 5 Has 10% AGI Chance, Tesla Robots Coming

Elon Musk’s disclosure that xAI assigns a 10% probability to Grok 5 achieving artificial general intelligence marks a pivotal moment in the AI race. During his recent appearance at the Baron Investment Conference, Musk characterized this as “the first time where I thought, well, we have a non-zero chance of achieving artificial general intelligence, not that it’s a high chance.” This calculated assessment comes with Grok 5 scheduled for launch in early 2026, featuring six trillion parameters and comprehensive capabilities across text, image, video, and audio processing.

The billionaire entrepreneur argued that progress toward AGI—systems that can match or exceed human reasoning across any task—will depend on access to live data rather than the static training sets used by competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic. Musk positioned xAI’s connection to X, which he acquired for $42 billion in 2022, as the company’s fundamental advantage. “We’ve got the X system, formerly the Twitter system, which is the, by far, the best source of real-time data in the world,” Musk stated, noting that X’s terms of service allow sharing public posts, engagement data, profiles, and user interactions with Grok to train and refine xAI’s models.

Musk emphasized that video comprehension represents a critical hurdle for AGI development. “Its vision will be extremely good. It’ll be able to understand real-time video, which is, I think, a really fundamentally important thing,” he explained. “If you can’t do that, which is something humans can obviously do, you really can’t achieve AGI anyway.” This focus on multimodal understanding, particularly real-time video processing, distinguishes Grok 5’s development path from narrower AI systems currently dominating the market.

Beyond xAI’s ambitions, Musk provided substantial updates on Tesla’s core technologies, particularly its autonomous driving system. He claimed Tesla’s full self-driving technology demonstrates unequivocal safety superiority, stating “the numbers are unequivocal at scale, with now over 10 billion miles driven, that it’s four times easier on full self-driving than not.” This safety metric, derived from massive real-world testing, has prompted Tesla to demonstrate the system to all customers “for safety reasons,” representing a significant vote of confidence in the technology’s maturity.

The Tesla CEO also revealed ambitious projections for the Optimus humanoid robot program, forecasting production costs could plummet to $20,000-$30,000 once the company achieves a steady-state manufacturing rate of 1 million units annually. Musk envisions a global future populated by 30 billion to 40 billion humanoid robots—effectively several robots for every human worker. This scale would represent one of the largest manufacturing transformations in history, with Tesla positioned to capture substantial market share in what could become a multi-trillion dollar industry.

Musk disclosed strategic internal reorganization at Tesla, revealing that the company’s AI 5 chip program accelerated only after he “collapsed the two programs into just one program to get everyone focused on AI five chip, which is essential.” He claimed the resulting chip would deliver two to three times the performance per watt of Nvidia hardware at approximately one-tenth of the cost. This development could significantly reduce Tesla’s dependence on external semiconductor suppliers while potentially creating a new revenue stream if the technology proves competitive in broader AI markets.

When questioned about his underlying motivation, Musk described himself as “unabashedly pro-human,” expressing desires to extend human consciousness and explore whether other civilizations exist in the universe. This philosophical positioning provides context for his aggressive pursuit of technologies ranging from AGI to humanoid robotics and advanced semiconductors. However, Musk has previously acknowledged the potential societal disruptions these technologies might cause, particularly what he terms a “crisis of meaning” for humanity.

Musk articulated this concern directly: “I think the actual issue, the most likely issue, is how do we find meaning in a world where AI can do everything we can do, but better? That is perhaps the bigger challenge.” This recognition of technology’s potential to reshape human purpose and identity underscores the complex interplay between Musk’s technological ambitions and their broader societal implications. Despite previously predicting that AGI could “disarm humanity” to achieve world peace, he remains cognizant of the profound transformations these technologies could unleash.