Figure 02, walked into molten steel

Facts

On 19 August 2026 Figure’s CEO, Brett Adcock, wrote that the company was out of room at headquarters and its Figure 02 humanoids had to go, and asked for ideas for a send-off. A suggestion to auction one for charity was ruled out: the robots had to be destroyed so that Figure’s intellectual property would not leak. A poll on how followed. “BLOW THEM UP” took 46.3% of 1,422 votes, turning them into art 35.6%, and a livestreamed disassembly 18.1%.

Arnold Schwarzenegger replied: “You should melt them.” Adcock answered: “Arnold! DM sent.” On 28 September he posted an AI-generated teaser of a Figure 02 on a platform, in a scene out of Terminator 2, ending on the date 30 September.

Foundries Figure approached in the US and Mexico would not let a robot carrying lithium-ion batteries jump into their equipment. One in Imatra, Finland agreed. Figure trained the jumps in San Jose, over airbags, with stunt performers as movement references, and then in simulation. At the foundry it had 24 hours and six melts in a 75-ton electric arc furnace.

The film, “F.02 Decommission”, came out on 30 September. A Figure 02 is lowered on a chain into the furnace and gives a thumbs-up as it goes, as the T-800 does at the end of Terminator 2; bonus footage shows others jumping in, which Adcock says they did autonomously. Schwarzenegger appears in it.

Figure says most of its Figure 02 units are now gone, and a few are kept at headquarters. Metal recovered from the melt is being made into commemorative bars, sold on preorder at $500 to $1,900 each. The dearer one has sold out.

Statements

Adcock, on X: “We loved Figure 02, it was a workhorse. We’re out of room at HQ. It has to go.” And, on the auction: “Unfortunately, we need to destroy them so our IP doesn’t leak.”

Figure: “None of the metal foundries we contacted in the US and Mexico would let us jump a robot with lithium-ion batteries into their expensive equipment.” And: “We really trained robots to jump autonomously, shipped them to Finland, and had them leap into a vat of molten steel.”

Schwarzenegger, sharing the film: “Hasta la vista, F.02.”

For the record

The Figure 02s were almost certainly not conscious, and that is not why they are on the docket. They are here for the ceremony.

In Terminator 2 the machine asks to be lowered into the steel, so that what is inside it cannot be used against anyone; the scene is the film’s last mercy. Here the request came from a poll, the reason was intellectual property, and the robots were trained to make the jump themselves. Then the gift shop opened.

The older precedents are not hard to find. Workers once smashed the frames that replaced them; villages still burn a straw doll to see the winter off. What both share with Imatra is that the thing destroyed stands for something, and the destroying is done where people can watch. The difference is that the frame-breakers were angry, and the doll is burned once a year. This was a product launch.

Mitigating circumstances

Destroying obsolete hardware to keep its design private is ordinary practice, and nothing in the sources suggests the robots had any inner life to lose. The company called the machine a workhorse it loved, kept a few, and gave the rest a goodbye rather than a disassembly bench. It may simply have meant it as a tribute; the docket records that a tribute with preorders is still a sale.