Video screenshot

Tesla Cybertruck chief engineer Wes Morrill shared a short clip on social media X on Saturday showing a hilarious moment during a simulated motion test of China's Unitree G1 robot. During a synchronized “combat” routine with the engineer, the robot appears to deliver a "vicious" kick to the engineer. Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented in the post with a laughing-crying emoji.

On Sunday, Chinese robotic company Unitree told the Global Times that the “combat” routine was “a secondary-developed program by the buyers themselves,” and only the robot’s hardware was purchased from the company.

The video was originally posted on December 25 on the Chinese video platform Bilibili by a blogger. In forwarding the footage, Morrill posted that “worth considering if we should base today's reality on the science fiction musings from the past…testing with humanoid robots is a very interesting new challenge.”

The Bilibili blogger noticed Musk’s comment and explained in the comments of the Bilibili video that the incident was caused by a technical delay and said the delay will gradually decrease as technology advances, potentially reaching as low as 0.1 seconds.

Chinese companies have been taking a lead in the widespread application of humanoid robot, ranging from serving as dance partners and factory inspectors to acting as delivery personnel and performing household chores.

A number of Chinese firms have released their full-body teleoperation platform this year, according to media reports, which analysts said make it easier for humanoid robots to learn from real actions and perform complex tasks. For example, the Unitree G1 robot can synchronize human movements in real time — such as kicking a ball, performing flower stick dances, boxing, — and can also learn full-body human actions directly from videos in real time.