Musk Says Trump Preventing Him From Building Legion of Robots

It turns out Donald Trump's tariffs have been good for something: pouring cold water on another one of Elon Musk's harebrained schemes. Remember those creepy humanoid robots Tesla showed off last year — the ones that turned out to remote-controlled by humans? As it turns out, the long-promised androids rely on magnets made from heavy rare-earth metals that are currently supplied exclusively by China. Unfortunately for Tesla, Donald Trump's baffling trade war seems to have successfully goaded China into suspending rare earth exports to the US, putting high-tech production in a tight bind. Especially affected, according to Musk, is the production of the tiny servos in Optimus' human-like hands. On a quarterly earnings call with Tesla investors yesterday, Musk was quick to point fingers at US-China trade relations under Trump for stalling efforts on Optimus production. "That’s more affected by the supply chain, by basically China requiring an export license to send out anywhere with m ... Read full article.