One post from Elon Musk was enough to jolt Micron Technology stock.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO replied on X to an analyst at Citrini Research, a firm that offers thematic equity and macro trading insights. Musk noted that the amount of memory humanoid robots need “will exceed everything else on Earth.”
Micron shares rose about 2.5% after the remark.
The timing could hardly be better for the memory maker. Micron fell about 6% on Oct. 22 as another AI sell-off hit chip stocks, the same day the company held a technology webinar for analysts.
Musk’s comment gave bulls a new story to tell, and this one has nothing to do with data centers. It is about machines that walk, lift, and work alongside people.
Robots could become memory’s next big customer
Musk made the remark on Oct. 26, in a post that quickly spread across investor circles.
His post listed the robot chip’s memory as LP5, a low-power type of DRAM that also goes into phones and laptops, Benzinga reported. The robot memory story still assumes builders can actually get the chips they need.
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Research firms see a big runway. Counterpoint Research expects DRAM demand from humanoids to climb more than 20 times between 2026 and 2030, with memory in each robot rising from about 19GB today to 39GB by the end of the decade, according to The Motley Fool.
That would add a fresh source of demand on top of data centers, smartphones, vehicles, and personal computers.
Musk thinks that may still be too low. In early October, he said in X that Tesla halved the memory on its AI5 chip to 72GB and cut the AI6 chip by a third to 144GB, calling it “the only way to get enough volume for Optimus production.”
He added that the cuts should have a negligible effect on performance, since memory bandwidth matters more than total capacity. Even after the cuts, both chips carry far more memory than Counterpoint’s per-robot estimate.
The cuts also showed how tight supply has become. JPMorgan said the memory shortage is lasting longer than analysts expected, and Micron’s management believes DRAM and NAND markets will stay tight beyond 2027.
Citi raised its own target to $1,300, citing stronger DRAM pricing and continued undersupply, TheStreet reported.
Tesla and Toyota are building toward scale
Tesla is moving from talk to production. The company has started early production of Optimus at its Fremont, California, factory and targets initial customer shipments towards the end of 2027, with Musk saying delivery is likely toward the end of next year.
Early buyers will likely use the robots for dangerous and repetitive industrial work, according to Manufacturing Dive.
The line is built for real volume. Tesla’s Fremont robotics line is capable of producing 1 million units a year, though Musk estimated it would take a year or longer to reach that pace as Tesla works through the design.
Other manufacturers are lining up, too. Toyota told investors it may need about 400,000 robots, both humanoid and conventional, to modernize its factories.
The effort requires spending as much as $6.4 billion a year starting in 2028. The plan covers Toyota, its group companies, and major suppliers, Reuters reported.
Wall Street is raising its forecasts to match. Goldman Sachs lifted its 2035 humanoid shipment estimate nearly fivefold to about 6.5 million units, putting the market at around $138 billion.
The bank also sees each robot carrying thousands of dollars in chip content, with memory makers among the suppliers that could benefit.
Micron’s valuation leaves room for upside, even after worries about the pace of AI infrastructure spending weighed on chip stocks.Bloomberg / Getty Images
Micron is already preparing for physical AI
Micron has been pointing at this market for weeks. On its fiscal fourth-quarter call, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra called self-driving cars “the first major deployment of physical AI” and said humanoid robots should have similar memory and storage needs.
The market is still small, with about 7,000 humanoids sold worldwide in 2025, The Motley Fool noted.
The numbers behind that view are large. Mehrotra said Level 4 and higher autonomous vehicles typically need more than 200GB of memory and multiple terabytes of storage, far more than today’s semi-autonomous cars.
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He also said several physical AI customers are already sampling Micron’s next-generation products, and that physical AI could become a significant driver of memory and storage demand by the end of the decade, driven by more memory in each device and more units sold, according to The Motley Fool.
Meanwhile, the core business is booming.
Micron posted fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of about $54.2 billion, up 379% from a year earlier, and guided well above expectations for the current quarter. Micron’s GAAP gross margin reached about 87%.
Micron stock still looks cheap, despite the hype
Micron’s valuation leaves room for upside, even after worries about the pace of AI infrastructure spending weighed on chip stocks. The stock trades at about 13 times earnings and roughly 5 times forward earnings, while the stock has more than tripled over the past year.
Analysts are lining up behind it. TradingView confirmed that D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria kept a Buy rating and a $3,000 price target after the Oct. 22 drop, arguing that AI should drive memory demand for three to five years, helped by longer customer commitments.
There are risks to that view, including faster new supply from Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix; slower AI spending; or more efficient memory use.
Rosenblatt is bullish, too. Analyst Kevin Cassidy raised his target to $1,900, pointing to constrained supply and 10 new strategic customer agreements that improve visibility.
Low earnings multiples can overstate the value of a cyclical business near peak profits. Still, if robots end up needing as much memory as Musk expects, Micron may have found its next big growth engine.
Related: JPMorgan revamps Micron stock price target before earnings