THE APEX TIMES
Jason Calacanis predicts Tesla’s Optimus could outgrow Apple’s iPhone, with a forecast of 1 billion robots by 2036
A prominent venture capitalist is drawing a bold line between humanoid robotics and consumer technology, arguing that Tesla’s Optimus could become a larger product category than the iPhone, based on a long-term scale estimate.
Venture capitalist Jason Calacanis, speaking in a market-focused discussion carried by Yahoo Finance, said Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot could grow into a business bigger than Apple’s iPhone. The claim was paired with an aggressive long-term forecast that Optimus could reach 1 billion units worldwide by 2036, a scale that would, in his view, eclipse the reach of Apple’s flagship phone product.
Calacanis framed the comparison as more than a head-to-head product bet. He characterized Optimus as a potential platform product that could be sold and deployed at massive volume, and he suggested that such volume could redefine how investors and consumers think about technology categories beyond smartphones.
Apple’s iPhone remains the core anchor of its consumer hardware narrative and a major driver of ecosystem lock-in through services, accessories, and developer support. In that context, the idea that a robot could become the dominant consumer-facing technology implies a shift in where companies try to capture recurring usage and brand attention.
For Tesla, Optimus is positioned as a humanoid robot program rather than a conventional single-purpose industrial machine. Humanoid design is aimed at operating in environments built for people, potentially lowering friction for adoption in factories, logistics, and other settings. Still, Calacanis’s projection is not the same thing as a disclosed production plan or a company-issued demand target, and the Yahoo Finance piece presented the estimate as his outlook.
Apple, meanwhile, has been publicly positioning itself around devices, operating systems, and services that benefit from long product lifecycles. The company’s newsroom does not, in its general publication stream, substitute for a detailed robotics production roadmap from either Tesla or Apple, and it also does not provide a direct rebuttal or confirmation of Calacanis’s specific volume timeline.
What is not clear from the market discussion is how the 1 billion-unit figure would be reached, whether through multiple price tiers, different deployment use cases, or manufacturing capacity ramp assumptions. Tesla did not provide, in the Yahoo Finance coverage referenced by the headline and framing, specific disclosures that map onto the unit forecast in a way readers could independently verify.
Why It Matters
- A claim that robots could outgrow smartphones highlights how quickly some investors view robotics as the next major consumer and enterprise platform.
- Long-range unit forecasts can influence market attention, even when they are not matched by specific company disclosures at the same level of detail.
- If humanoid robotics reaches mass deployment, it would affect procurement cycles, automation strategy, and the ecosystem power dynamics that historically favored smartphone-centric platforms.
- The juxtaposition also raises the question of whether Apple’s strengths in hardware-software integration and services could translate to robotics, or whether robotics companies will define the next ecosystem independently.
Sources
Key Facts
- Jason Calacanis said he expects Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot to become a product category larger than Apple’s iPhone, according to a Yahoo Finance story.
- Calacanis’ forecast includes the idea of 1 billion Optimus robots worldwide by 2036.
- The comparison is framed as a long-term technology shift, not as a near-term product launch timeline.
- The projection is attributed to Calacanis’ outlook rather than to a detailed, company-published production or demand plan in the referenced coverage.
- Apple’s iPhone is implicitly used as the benchmark for scale and consumer technology dominance in the discussion.
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