Editor’s note: “Steve Jobs Dreamed it. Elon Musk Is Making it Fruitful.” was previously published in June 2025 with the title “Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and the Most Lucrative Invention of the Century.” It has since been updated to include the most relevant information available.
We all know about Steve Jobs: the leadership, the turtlenecks, the gadgets he helped bring to life that went on to reshape nearly every facet of our lives – the iPhone, the Mac, the iPad.
He was one of the greatest innovators of our time, guiding Apple (AAPL) to become one of the most profitable companies of the century.
But what if I told you there’s a Steve Jobs story you’ve never heard – one that might be his most ambitious dream of all?
It was a vision so daring that it aimed not just to sell a new product but transform America itself; bring back prosperity, rebuild forgotten towns, and free the country from its dependence on foreign factories.
We’re talking about an aspiration with economy-transforming potential…
Steve Jobs’ Hidden Dream: Advanced Manufacturing at Home
In the late 1980s and early ’90s, while other CEOs were shipping jobs overseas, Jobs was deeply worried.
He saw that America’s industrial heart was being hollowed out; that the knowledge of how to make things was leaving our shores. And he knew that, once gone, it might never come back.
For Jobs, manufacturing wasn’t just about assembly lines. It was about innovation. When a nation stops building, it stops inventing. It becomes dependent; vulnerable. And that terrified him.
So, the Apple co-founder hatched a plan. He called it his next revolution: a vision for advanced factories where human and robot workers create the future together, right here in America. He dreamed of high-paying jobs, revitalized Rust Belt towns, and a nation in control of its destiny once again.
In 1990, Jobs built a prototype factory in California. The idea? Use cutting-edge automation to make American workers so productive they could outcompete cheap overseas labor. Robots would handle the repetitive work while people run the show. It was genius.
Except the world wasn’t quite ready for this idea to be realized. The tech wasn’t there. The economics didn’t pencil out. And when Jobs passed in 2011, many thought his most audacious dream died with him…
But it didn’t.
It’s being brought to life right now, powered by technologies Jobs could only imagine during his lifetime – and driven by the one entrepreneur bold and dedicated enough to finish what he started: Elon Musk.
Elon Musk’s Optimus Steps In With Robots That See, Think, and Build
The man who made electric cars sexy, privatized space travel, and wants to put chips in your brain has taken up Jobs’ mantle – and he’s supercharging it.
Where Jobs had clunky robots and primitive AI, Musk has Tesla’s (TSLA) Optimus: a humanoid robot that can see, think, and move with uncanny precision. Thanks to advances in AI, sensors, and materials science, Musk has cracked the code Jobs never could.
Tesla’s gigafactories already have these robots at work, carrying parts, assembling components, and charging themselves when needed.
And these aren’t million-dollar prototypes. Musk says they’ll cost under $20,000 apiece. That’s less than what some companies pay per year for offshore labor.
Optimus does what Jobs dreamed of: makes reshoring not just patriotic but profitable.
Robot Reshoring: Productivity, Prosperity, and New High-Wage Jobs
In our view, this robot is a game-changer – one that could end the era of offshoring and bring manufacturing roaring back to American soil.
Imagine factories where robots do the grunt work – tirelessly, flawlessly, 24/7 – while human workers move into high-skill, high-pay roles like programming, supervising, and maintaining.
Imagine the Rust Belt reborn, with jobs flooding back and towns revitalized.
Today, it’s more than a fantasy. It’s the plan.
And the economics are undeniable… because when a robot costs less than a single offshore worker, works all day and night, and produces zero defects, why keep factories overseas?
Optimus is actively rewriting the logic behind global supply chains. It’s no wonder politicians of all stripes are drooling over it.
Trump’s “America First” vision now seems more like an inevitability. And this isn’t just about replacing jobs. It’s about transforming them.
History shows that automation often creates more jobs. For example, when ATMs launched in the 1970s, experts worried they would eliminate bank-teller roles. But that didn’t happen. Instead, as automation lowered the cost of running branches, banks opened more of them – and teller employment rose from around 300,000 in 1970 to 600,000 by 2010.
Economists call this a “compensation effect.” Automation reduces unit costs, spurring demand for services and supporting new roles – especially those involving human interaction and problem-solving.
That’s why we expect that for every fleet of robots, we’ll need several human workers to program, maintain, and supervise them. And beyond that, there should be a ripple effect for component suppliers, software developers, infrastructure workers, and more.
In other words, as Tesla’s Optimus scales, we’re likely to see growing innovation hubs, supplier networks, and regional career ecosystems, rekindling the kind of job-rich rebounds seen in past industrial shifts.
Finding Tomorrow’s Winning Tech Firms In the Optimus Supply Chain
Still skeptical? Let’s talk numbers:
- Tesla has already begun deploying Optimus internally.
- Elon Musk has said Tesla expects to have “thousands” of Optimus robots working in its factories by the end of 2025, and later mentioned a target of 5,000 units, with parts capacity reaching 10,000- to 12,000 robots.
- Production could scale quite quickly after that, so long as the company doesn’t encounter too many headwinds with sourcing necessary materials.
- As such, Tesla’s market cap, fueled by Optimus, could rise from $1 trillion today to $25 trillion by 2030. Now, that may be partly wishful thinking – but it is also Musk’s roadmap, and Wall Street is starting to take notice.
And it’s not just Tesla that wins if that’s the case.
Every revolution has its ecosystem. Just as the iPhone created fortunes for component suppliers like Skyworks (SWKS) and Cirrus Logic (CRUS), Optimus will likely mint new industrial titans as demand for chipmakers, sensor suppliers, actuator specialists, and materials innovators takes off.
Indeed, since Optimus isn’t built from off-the-shelf parts, Tesla is creating an entirely new supply chain, from neural vision chips to exoskeleton materials.
That means dozens of small, specialist companies are about to go from obscure to essential.
The Quiet Enablers of the Physical AI Revolution
We suspect that, outside of niche parts suppliers, this is especially true for one sector in particular – rare earth metals.
As we outlined in a recent issue on the subject:
Humanoid robots like…Optimus are powered by a complex network of small, powerful electric motors in their shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, hips, knees, ankles, and toes. Each needs to be lightweight, high-torque, and ultra-efficient.
And the key ingredient inside all of them? Rare earth metals – specifically, neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets.
Importantly, this isn’t just the case for Optimus but its competitors, too. Nearly every actuator in these bots requires these magnets to function, making rare earth materials a vital component of this supply chain.
So, when it comes to the robotics boom:
- More robots → more motors
- More motors → more rare earth magnets
- More magnets → massive new demand for rare earth materials
Act Fast: Innovation and National Security Don’t Sleep
With AI quickly becoming the backbone of 21st-century power, control over AI infrastructure means control over future prosperity.
The White House knows this. That’s why it’s been so focused on things like Project Stargate – OpenAI’s $500 billion plan to build AI supercomputing campuses – and enforcing its American-first policy approach.
Part of that effort also involves building out a domestic rare earth metals supply chain.
Right now, our country is investing billions into U.S.-based mining, refining, and magnet-making projects, as illustrated by the Pentagon’s newly announced $400 million investment into MP Materials (MP).
And, in fact, thanks to an AI-focused executive order signed earlier this year, such overlooked suppliers may be about to go vertical…
InvestorPlace’s own Louis Navellier just held a special briefing on how this directive could reshape the AI market as soon as July 22 – and the stocks that could see explosive gains once capital starts pouring in.
But you’ll have to be nimble: this presentation goes offline at midnight tonight.
We’re confident this is a briefing you don’t want to miss. After all, it turns out Louis was right on the money…
He mentioned MP Materials as a potential buy the night he went live – and it surged on the Pentagon’s investment the very next day.
Yet, it’s not the only trade he’s bullish on here.
