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A leaked video from Tesla’s “Autonomy Visualized” event in Miami has triggered fresh debate about the company’s humanoid robot, Optimus. The footage shows the robot falling backward during a live demonstration. While falls are common in robot development, one particular detail raised major concerns: as Optimus fell, it made a very specific hand gesture, reaching toward its face as if removing a VR headset. Since the robot was not wearing anything on its head, the gesture immediately drew attention.

Experts and viewers quickly noted that the motion is nearly identical to how humans remove VR headsets when teleoperating machines. This raised suspicions that Optimus was mirroring the actions of a remote human operator rather than acting on its own. Critics say the moment undermines Tesla’s long-standing narrative that Optimus is capable of functioning autonomously.

Fans at the Miami event recorded Optimus performing simple tasks: handing out bottled water, posing for photos, and even dancing. However, while distributing water, the robot’s hand movements became unstable, causing it to drop items. Moments later, it lost balance and began to fall backward, leading to the now widely discussed “air headset removal” gesture seen in the leaked clip.

The incident revived long-standing concerns about Tesla’s dependence on remote human control. At a previous “We, Robot” event, Optimus was reportedly heavily teleoperated, although Tesla did not openly acknowledge it. The Miami gesture closely matches the VR-based training methods Tesla has used in the lab, adding further weight to claims that human operators may still be guiding the robot during public demos.

Electrek reported that the fall itself is not unusual. Instead, the embarrassment comes from the gesture that appeared to expose hidden teleoperation. Several analysts now question whether Tesla has overstated the robot’s current AI capabilities. Observers say the incident felt like a “Wizard of Oz moment,” breaking the illusion of autonomy.

Elon Musk dismissed the concerns, insisting that Optimus demos are not remotely controlled. He recently claimed that a kung fu performance by the robot at another event was “entirely AI-driven.” Musk continues to promote Optimus as a product with trillion-dollar potential, expecting millions of units to be deployed across Tesla factories in the near future.

The global race to build humanoid robots has attracted billions of dollars in investment, with major players such as Boston Dynamics, Figure AI, Agility Robotics, and Apptronik pushing the field forward. Companies such as Figure are showcasing robots for factory work, while Agility’s Digit is already being tested in warehouses.

Another notable example is NEO, a $20,000 humanoid robot now on pre-sale from 1X Technologies, designed for household tasks like carrying groceries and organizing items. Despite these advances, large gaps still exist between robot hardware, software, and reliable autonomous behavior.

The Miami incident suggests that Tesla, like many competitors, is still far from achieving true autonomy. If even simple actions like handing out water require human intervention, Optimus may be much further from Musk’s vision than expected.

For many observers, the Miami demo serves as a reminder of how challenging it is to build a reliable, autonomous humanoid robot. While Optimus remains an ambitious project, the leaked video raises important questions about transparency, readiness, and the pace of AI development within Tesla.

Producing globally competitive models makes China a close peer of the US in AI development

China’s open-source artificial intelligence models accounted for nearly 30 per cent of total global use of the technology, while Chinese-language prompts ranked second in token volume behind English, according to a report.

This year’s surge in open-source large language model (LLM) usage around the world had been fuelled by Chinese-developed systems, including Alibaba Group Holding’s Qwen family of models, DeepSeek’s V3 and Moonshot AI’s Kimi K2, according to a recently published report by OpenRouter, a third-party AI model aggregator, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Proprietary Western models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o and GPT-5, remained dominant with a 70 per cent global share.

According to the empirical study of 100 trillion tokens by OpenRouter, Chinese open-source LLMs’ global share started from a low base of 1.2 per cent in late 2024 to reach nearly 30 per cent over a few months this year. Tokens are units of data processed by AI models during training and inference, enabling prediction, generation and reasoning.

So far this year, Chinese open-source LLMs averaged 13 per cent of weekly token volume, as growth accelerated in the second half of 2025, to almost match the 13.7 per cent average recorded by AI models from the rest of the world, the report said.

“China has emerged as a major force, not only through domestic consumption but also by producing globally competitive models,” the report said.

The report offered fresh evidence that China has become a close peer of the United States in AI model development, despite Washington’s restrictions on Chinese firms’ access to advanced graphics processing units from the likes of Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

The rise of Chinese open-source AI models “reflect not only competitive quality, but also rapid iteration and dense release cycles”, the report said.

It pointed out that the aggressive release schedules of Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen and DeepSeek had enabled users to rapidly adapt to increased development workloads. Alibaba Cloud is the AI and cloud computing services unit of Hangzhou-based Alibaba.

With China’s open-source models gaining recognition for increased efficiency and low-cost adoption, Chinese had become the second most used prompt language globally, accounting for nearly 5 per cent of all requests behind market leading English, according to the report.

That percentage was significantly higher than the Chinese language’s share on the internet, which stood at about 1.1 per cent, according to various estimates.

In terms of global share in LLM tokens, China ranked fourth behind the US, Singapore and Germany, according to the report.

The global demand for open-source AI models evolved from a DeepSeek-led monopoly in December 2024 to a fragmented landscape by late 2025 with competition from Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen and Moonshot AI’s Kimi, according to the report. It said LLM usage was now widely distributed, with no single model exceeding a 25 per cent share.

Paris, Dec. 8 — DBV Technologies is drawing renewed attention in the food-allergy treatment space as the company advances its epicutaneous immunotherapy patch, Viaskin Peanut, while the sector’s largest historical investor, Nestlé, has fully exited its previous peanut-allergy exposure.

DBV trades at a market capitalization of ~$520 million, with investor sentiment supported by the company’s March 2025 financing package of up to $306.9 million aimed at completing regulatory pathways and preparing for potential U.S. market entry. The FDA has agreed on a regulatory framework enabling DBV to proceed toward a BLA filing for children aged 4–7, expected in 2026.

The competitive backdrop remains defined by Nestlé’s earlier move into the category: in 2020, the Swiss group acquired Aimmune Therapeutics — developer of the oral peanut-allergy therapy Palforzia — for $2.6 billion in cash. Palforzia became the first FDA-approved treatment to reduce severity of allergic reactions to accidental peanut exposure. However, adoption lagged, and Nestlé divested the asset to Stallergenes Greer in September 2023, citing weak commercial traction.

The divergence underscores shifting expectations in the sector: DBV is positioning a less invasive patch-based approach that may offer improved tolerability versus oral desensitization, while the previous market leader has stepped away after a costly and underperforming entry.

Investors now watch whether DBV — whose valuation remains far below the price Nestlé once paid for Aimmune — can translate regulatory progress into a viable commercial pathway in a market still seeking scalable, physician-friendly solutions.

As the Middle East luxury giant marks 70 years, CEO Michael Chalhoub orchestrates an ambitious pivot toward brand ownership and global expansion.

DUBAI — For seven decades, Chalhoub Group has built its empire by bringing the world’s most prestigious luxury brands to the Middle East. Now, under third-generation chief executive officer Michael Chalhoub, the company is rewriting its playbook entirely.

The transformation is ambitious, aiming to evolve from regional distributor and retail partner into what the company’s Vision 2033 describes as “an international luxury brand builder, bridging cultures and inspiring dreams.” It’s a pivot encompassing proprietary brands, investments in emerging designers and the group’s first American flagship.

“This constant need to reinvent ourselves is really, really important,” Michael told WWD. “If you don’t reinvent yourself, you die.”

From Partner and Distributor to Creator

The most visible sign of Chalhoub’s strategic shift is the creation of their own brands. This year saw the launch of handbag brand Makette, an initiative of the group’s fashion innovation lab. It represents a significant departure for a company that spent seven decades building other brands’ presence in the region.

The group’s investment strategy has also shifted toward active brand ownership. Last September, Chalhoub revealed a strategic minority investment in Willy Chavarria, the New York-based fashion brand celebrated for its bold aesthetic and inclusive cultural voice.

Perhaps the most ambitious element of Chalhoub’s new strategy is its expansion into the U.S. — the world’s largest footwear market and territory, where Middle Eastern retail players have historically had little presence.

Level Shoes, the group’s homegrown luxury footwear concept that operates a 96,000-square-foot destination in Dubai Mall, has launched a dedicated U.S. e-commerce platform backed by a new Florida logistics center. A flagship is planned for Bal Harbour Shops in Miami by late 2027. The U.S. is already Level Shoes’ fourth-largest market by presence and spend, with five years of double-digit growth and 120 percent revenue growth over the past three years.

Closer to home, Saudi Arabia has emerged as a critical growth engine. The Kingdom’s luxury market, currently valued at nearly $3.5 billion, is being transformed by the government’s Vision 2030 plan and a young, digitally connected population.

The group recently inaugurated a regional fulfillment center in Riyadh’s free zone near King Khalid International Airport, designed to enable 90-minute deliveries to major Saudi cities. The April 2025 expansion into Solitaire Mall brought flagships including Louis Vuitton, Dior, Fendi, Sephora, Tiffany & Co. and Chaumet.

“Saudi Arabia grew at a double-digit share last year, and we expect continued healthy single-digit growth across all segments,” the CEO said. “Fashion and beauty remain the strongest performing categories, driven by demand for elevated experiences.”

Underpinning Chalhoub’s growth ambitions is a sustainability commitment that predates much of the region and that executive chairman Patrick Chalhoub continues to champion as a core strategic pillar.

The group has pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2040, a full decade ahead of most industry targets, and is a member of the United Nations Global Compact and signatory of the Women’s Empowerment Principles.

Patrick Chalhoub traces the company’s environmental awakening to a pragmatic realization.

“We started in 2010, 2011 by just watching what is happening on the scene,” he recalled. “But then gradually we felt that the region was totally underdeveloped on sustainability. Waste management — we couldn’t find anyone who would collect for waste management. We had to negotiate with some of the Emirates in order to get the different bins.”

That infrastructure gap transformed Chalhoub from observer to activist. “We felt that we could have a role to play,” the chairman said. “The government at that time was not putting any regulation. The public was not very aware. So we said, ‘perhaps it’s our responsibility as a business to be more activist.'”

The result was “Unity for Change,” a coalition Chalhoub cofounded with major mall developers Majid Al Futtaim and Emaar alongside LVMH. The group established internal industry regulations without waiting for government mandates — covering everything from air conditioning temperatures to store closing times to water treatment protocols.

“We said the aim is net zero by 2050. Why don’t we give the example and try to put it at an earlier stage?” Patrick Chalhoub explained. The company began rigorously measuring its environmental impact and embedding targets into senior management KPIs. “When you measure, you can improve. The engagement was not just from the top people in charge of sustainability — it became much more broad.”

The theme of Chalhoub’s 70th anniversary celebration — “Symphony of the Future” — captures the group’s vision for the next chapter.

“There’s two key words,” Michael Chalhoub explained. “The symphony is a very creative way to say that we’re all working together on something that’s beautiful, on something that people are passionate about. And the future is because today, we’re looking at establishing the foundation for 2033 and beyond.”

With the Gulf Cooperation Council luxury market projected to reach $15 billion by 2027 and strategic moves positioning Chalhoub as both brand creator and global investor, the group is staking its claim not just as the Middle East’s luxury gatekeeper — but as a player shaping the industry’s next chapter.

The French department store group is pushing into India, rethinking China and accelerating in the Middle East, while overhauling its Paris flagships amid a retail recovery.

PARIS — Retail runs in Nicolas Houzé’s blood.

A fifth-generation member of the French family behind Galeries Lafayette, Houzé joined the business in 2006, led the department store as chief executive officer for more than a decade, then followed his father’s footsteps into the role of chair of the group’s executive board last year.

In addition to steering the Galeries Lafayette Group, he chairs France’s strategic committee for fashion and luxury and presides over the union of city-center retailers. On Dec. 1, he was also named president of the International Association of Department Stores, taking the helm as global retail continues to seek recovery.

Last month, Houzé marked a milestone for the group by opening Galeries Lafayette’s first store in India, which is the country’s first stand-alone high-street department store. He has been central to leading the company’s post-pandemic recovery while expanding its international footprint and navigating the shifting trends in fashion, e-commerce and rapidly-changing consumer habits.

In a wide-ranging interview in his office with sweeping views of the Sacré-Cœur, Houzé said the group is doubling down on its department-store model even as much of the industry pulls back, and gaining traction from a growing demand for watches, jewelry and beauty, following the overall rebound at its Paris flagship.

Early acquisitions of multibrand retailers Louis Pion and Royal Quartz, and later the Mauboussin jewelry brand, helped secure the group’s position in the watch and jewelry segment and reinforced relationships with brands such as Rolex — all of which were aimed at strengthening Galeries Lafayette’s core business.

While many were sounding the death knell for brick-and-mortar retail during the pandemic, the group took a counterintuitive bet with a 400 million euro investment to renovate its flagship on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris over four years. The move paid off, with sales returning to 2019 levels by 2024.

A further 400 million euros is now earmarked for upgrades in Paris — including a full overhaul of the stand-alone men’s building to be completed by the end of 2027 — and across its regional network, positioning the family-owned retailer for a new phase of growth.

Galeries Lafayette is still pursuing measured international expansion and strengthening its brand globally. It is reexamining its China strategy, and has an eye on opportunities in the Middle East, including Riyadh.

Houzé spoke to WWD about growth opportunities, why he’s staying out of the U.S., the controversy over Shein’s presence in France, and the future of department stores as entertainment. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Nicolas Houzé: We thought that it could be interesting to enter India back in 2017, but we were convinced that we wouldn’t be able to do it by ourselves. We were looking for a partner and are really happy to partner with the Birla group, which is also a family business.

We’re really proud of what we’ve done. We know that it’s a complicated market, with only a few shopping malls, no department stores. It’s the first time that a department store has opened a stand-alone, high-street location. What we can offer with the experience, the store, the architecture, the brands and the building is amazing.

[In the first two weeks of opening] we are welcoming between 500 and 1,000 customers buying [daily]. We are on track, and the turnover that we have been doing for the past two weeks is what we expected. It’s a great, great start.

We are looking at opening a store in Delhi. When we signed the partnership, we said it would be the year after Mumbai, but looking at [possible locations] it will be more like 2028. But India is the place for us.

N.H.: Over the past four years, we have quadrupled the turnover that we are doing with U.S. customers, doubled the turnover for European customers, and grown by double digits with French customers.

This year, we will welcome between 32 million and 35 million people entering the store, with more than 8 million transactions. Those are huge numbers, and they are still growing. By 2024, we reached nearly the same turnover that we were doing in 2019. So, we are really on track for growth [this year].

We managed to de-stress the business. We have always wanted to be a global department store welcoming the world, and it’s more the case today that it was before COVID-19.

N.H.: That it’s a tough one, to be honest. And looking at what we have, we have different sizes of department store. The stores that are working quite well are the smaller ones, like Shenzhen and Macao, better than Shanghai and Beijing. Shenzhen is still growing very fast.

The big department stores that we built back in 2013 are no longer a good answer or the right answer for the Chinese customer. So, we are currently working with our joint venture partner Hopson Group to see what we can do with the two locations that are the most difficult.

N.H.: We are in the Middle East — Dubai and Qatar — and we are looking at a new project in Saudi [Arabia], in Riyadh, so we think that the Middle East is a good location also to develop Galeries Lafayette.

N.H.: To be honest, India is for us the real — I won’t say bet, because we are partnering with [Birla] — but outside of that we are not looking at other projects, even though every week we are asked [to open] new locations — projects in Greece, in Azerbaijan. But we are really cautious. Our goal is not to open stores and to close them in a few years. We know that the Galeries Lafayette brand is really powerful, and we are going to be very cautious about future developments.

N.H.: Galeries Lafayette is one of the leaders of the industry. Look, we were quite hurt by COVID-19, because we were the biggest [department store] and we were closed the longest. When we came out of COVID, together with the team and also within the family, we thought that we should focus on our strengths and focus on our core business, which is Galeries Lafayette. What was not exactly at the core of it, we needed to find a solution to that.

Looking at the department stores, we had two brands, Galeries Lafayette and BHV. For the past 30 years we’ve been running those two brands, and it has always been difficult because the positioning of the two is different, and because it is so intensive in terms of [capital expenditures]. We decided that it was time for us to find a solution for BHV, and we sold it. It was a way for us to refocus our energy.

N.H.: No, I don’t regret it because at the time when I took this decision, I thought that was the best [company] to operate BHV. But after that — it’s a complicated business to operate a department store. He has a vision that is different from ours and, I don’t know what will happen in the future, but perhaps it will change and no longer be a department store, but a location with some shopping destinations, some restaurants, perhaps a hotel. It will be something different from the department store, that’s my point of view, but I’m not sure of that. And at the end, I think that he did something that we could have done, but we didn’t want to do that because it was not in our essence.

N.H.: We will review our options — to sell it to someone else or to keep it. You know, the department store business is really linked to real estate. We think, and he also thinks, that he needs to acquire the building.

N.H.: Yes. He decided that he wanted to open Shein stores, and we think that is not the same positioning; Shein customers are not the same as Galeries Lafayette customers. Since he told me that he wanted to operate Shein within BHV and a few Galeries Lafayette stores, I said, “You can do what you want with BHV, but you won’t be able to do what you want with Galeries Lafayette because you don’t own the brand.” From our point of view, there is [no way] to have Shein within Galeries Lafayette. And after weeks of discussion, we both decided that it was time for us to separate the businesses.

We have tried during our history to open fast fashion within Galeries Lafayette, and we’ve closed them each time. We’ve opened Zara, we’ve opened Topshop. We’ve opened also, perhaps not fast fashion, but looking at the positioning, very low fashion like Jennyfer.

Of course we managed to attract customers, but there was no cross-sell with the other brands. When we build the assortment of Galeries Lafayette, we try to create coherence and to make sure that every brand will respond to our customer base. Fast-fashion brands were not the right answer for our customer — and it was not even ultra-fast fashion [like Shein].

N.H.: We have still grown by 5 percent over 2024 and it’s across all categories. Of course, we can see that some brands are [in a] much more difficult situation than others, and some categories that are more difficult than others. But all in all, the luxury [brands] that we’ve opened [in the revamped space] on the ground floor are doing quite well, and we are really happy with the business at the moment.

N.H.: Ready-to-wear is a bit softer and leather goods on the ground floor. The ones that are really booming are shoes, watches and jewelry.

N.H.: We are quite confident [with the location] and the Champs-Élysées will soon welcome huge new stores for luxury brands [such as Louis Vuitton]. It’s going to be nice, but we won’t be a luxury destination. We will stay like we are, with some luxury, but also fashion and premium brands.

The local portion of customers is smaller than what we have in Haussmann. In Haussmann, more than one-third of the customers are local. In the Champs-Élysées store, it’s around 20 percent, and 80 percent are international customers. There is a lot of foot traffic, with between 200,000 and 300,000 people walking on the Champs-Élysées every day — and we are welcoming a lot of them. One of the challenges that we have to face is that lots of people enter the store, but we have to work on the transformation rate, which is quite low compared to Haussmann and the other stores in the network. We are welcoming lots of customers that are curious visitors and not buyers.

N.H.: We work with the workforce and with the brands to make sure that we have the right product, and the right people that are well trained.

It’s quite difficult to keep people. We had a high turnover rate. When we opened the store in 2019 we had a specific way of doing the business with only Galeries Lafayette staff, and they were very well trained. But a lot of them were hired away by brands. Since then we’ve had to renew almost all the staff of the store, and it’s always a challenge to make sure that they have the right training, the right way of handling the customer relationship, and to make sure that the transformation rate is in their mind. It’s improving every year. We are growing in the Champs-Élysées store faster than the rest of the stores that we have in France.

N.H.: It’s complementary. It’s much more in the home decoration business, rather than the fashion one. The market is difficult and but we’ve hired a new CEO [Béatrice Héricourt] that joined the company six months ago. She’s reviewing the business, and she will propose a new three-year strategy by the end of the year. With a strong brand like La Redoute, we are really confident in the future. It is really a pillar of the group now.

We are investing a lot to make sure that galerieslafayette.com plays a role to complement the store, and since we’ve implemented the new SAP platform with new tools, the business is growing really fast. We are really confident that galerieslafayette.com will play a role in the future.

N.H.: To be honest, we don’t push the fur, and we make sure that the brands that we are welcoming have the fewest products with fur. The fur that is sold in Galeries Lafayette is only with luxury brands. Few of them are doing that, and it’s only under European and French regulations. For the moment, we have no plan to change that. We are not pushing or increasing the sales or the place of fur in our assortment. We have only few brands that are proposing fur products.

N.H.: It’s mainly Fendi.

N.H.: The watch and jewelry [category] is quite a good business, and the beauty business is doing very good. Overall, perfume, makeup and skin care are growing quite well. Well-being was not part of the business three years ago. We’ve decided to implement new brands and new categories around well-being at the Haussmann store and throughout the network.

We’ve increased the size of the beauty [offering] because we think that it’s a good category for us. [In fragrance], we welcome brands like Creed, and the high perfume from Dior and Chanel, that are not carried in Sephora. It’s a way for us to differentiate from the specialist stores.

With Korean beauty, we have done some tests, but it has not been a success for us. We tried a long time ago, but perhaps we were too early. It’s a question that we have at the moment, because it seems to be popular with the next generation of young people. We will continue to explore.

N.H.: We are strong believers that physical retail will continue to be a successful business, if it’s not boring. We think that boring retail is dead.

N.H.: Since the beginning of the year, we’ve been growing double digits. Over the next three years, our plan is to double the business.

N.H.: When it’s about convenience, you can buy everything online. But when you want to fit the product, when you want to test the product, when you want to spend hundreds of euros or thousands of euros, you will come to a store.

We have to be in the entertainment industry — not playing a role like Netflix — but we have to entertain to make sure that people, each time they want to buy something, they want to come to a department store. We have to make sure that they will find excitement, find the right products. At the end, boring retail is dead. The department store is more alive than ever.

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