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Hello, Reader.
In 1983, Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Dorsett made NFL history with a 99-yard touchdown – the maximum possible rushing distance in football.
It’s an athletic feat that has only been tied by the Tennessee Titans’ Derrick Henry in 2018.
But both players would need to travel three to four times farther than their 99-yard runs to cover the length of the new Tesla Corp. (TSLA) Optimus factory.
Drone footage captured this week revealed that construction is officially underway on a dedicated Optimus factory expansion at Gigafactory Texas – Tesla’s massive manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas.
The entire expanded Giga Texas campus could approach 15 million square feet total, making it one of the largest manufacturing complexes in the world. (That’s roughly the size of 260 full NFL fields laid out side by side.)
Tesla’s long-term Optimus production target at the new factory is reportedly up to 10 million robots per year. That kind of scale is usually reserved for making phones or electronic gadgets, not robots.
It’s an extremely ambitious target. And let’s just say Tesla has a history of aggressive, and inaccurate, timelines.
CEO Elon Musk often announces very ambitious launch dates or production goals that later get delayed – sometimes by years:
- In 2022,Musk suggested Optimus could be “production ready” by 2023. That did not happen.
- In 2023, the company talked about having “thousands” of robots working in factories by the end of 2023. That target was missed.
- In 2025, Tesla targeted around 5,000 robots for internal factory use in 2025, but outside estimates suggested output was only in the hundreds.
This year, Tesla shifted to “Gen 3” Optimus, with Musk acknowledging that mass production will ramp “agonizingly slow.”
The question also remains whether humanoid robots can be profitable and widely used anytime soon.
Even as Tesla breaks ground on a dedicated Optimus factory, I see a compelling alternative.
It’s a company that directly competes with Optimus… but unlike Tesla, it’s already an established robotics player with a clear first-mover advantage.
In today’s Smart Money, I’ll reveal the details of this company.
This recommendation is a part of my larger strategy that I’ll also share more about below.
Let’s dive in…
A Robotics Company Selling Survival
Instead of Tesla, the company I’ve identified uses AI software to control robots that are tailor-made for warehouses and distribution centers.
And unlike finicky humanoids, they’re installed much like Lego blocks.
This company’s robots are designed for specific tasks within the warehouse environment, emphasizing speed, accuracy, and efficiency in handling goods. These robots travel 5X faster than Optimus and can carry several hundred more pounds.
So, while Tesla is lagging behind in building robots for the future, this company is already printing money with robots today.
It’s Symbotic Inc. (SYM).
Its revenue has spiked 15-fold – from just $100 million in 2019 to over $1.5 billion today. Its current backlog means there’s another $23 billion in future sales already baked in the cake.
Compare that with zero formal commitments to Tesla’s Optimus.
Tesla is still mostly proving its humanoid robot inside its own ecosystem. But even if Optimus eventually rolls out to warehouses, it’s little bit like bringing a Swiss Army knife to compete in Formula One. Yes, the knife is a highly functional tool, but it’s all wrong for the task at hand.
With Optimus, Tesla is essentially attempting to build a robotic employee. But Symbotic makes highly optimized factory machinery. Its specialized autonomous bots operate inside tightly controlled warehouse systems designed specifically for moving, sorting, storing, and retrieving inventory.
This is important as we’re hitting the perfect storm for a robotics explosion: labor shortages, wage inflation, and supply chain disruptions.
Companies aren’t just kicking the tires on automation anymore – they’re desperate for it.
In other words, the folks at Symbotic aren’t selling robots. They’re selling survival.
Sell This, Buy That
This isn’t the first time I’ve found a short-term paired trade where I was short on Tesla.
In 2016, when the company unveiled its Model 3 to a flurry of pre-orders and excitement, I told folks to stay away from the EV-maker. Instead, I looked in a different direction and put the spotlight Teck Resources Ltd. (TECK), a Canadian mining company.
Over the next 10 months, Tesla fell 9%, while Teck soared a whopping 745%.
This was actually the first trade I picked in one of Wall Street’s biggest investment competitions, Portfolios With Purpose.
In that competition, I went toe-to-toe with legends like David Einhorn, Bill Ackman, and Joel Greenblatt to see who could create the top performing portfolio.
And guess what? I won.
At the end of the competition, I netted a 140% return when the market returned just 12%.
What was clear to everyone who closely followed my strategy in that competition is that winning is only partially about which stocks you buy.
Equally important are which stocks you sell… or never buy.
In other words, a big part of saying “yes” to a stock is saying “no” to a lot of other stocks.
That’s what is all about.
In my special broadcast, I share the names and tickers of several solid companies that could multiply your money in the coming months… and several that could do the opposite.
Regards,
91¶¶Òõ
Editor, Smart Money
