Vishay Precision Group VPG
VPG is the unnoticed picks-and-shovels supplier of precision sensors to Tesla's Optimus humanoid program; at $300M market cap and 0.9x book, Wall Street has completely missed the asymmetric upside.
Thesis
Citron Research argues that Vishay Precision Group (NYSE: VPG), a niche provider of precision measurement and force/torque sensing technologies spun off from Vishay Intertechnology, is the undisclosed humanoid-robot customer behind Tesla's Optimus program. CEO Ziv Shoshani's earnings-call breadcrumbs — a November 2023 design win with a humanoid maker in 'beta phase,' followed by Tesla's Optimus Gen 2 unveil one month later, and August 2024 commentary about thousands of robots in 2025 — line up exactly with Musk's public Optimus timeline. A second humanoid customer is hinted at, plausibly Figure AI. With a $300M market cap, P/E 24x, EV/EBITDA 8.5x, P/B 0.9x, $25M+ net cash, and consistent free cash flow, Citron sees deep-value and asymmetric upside as the Tesla connection becomes visible.
SCQA
Vishay Precision Group is a small-cap precision-sensor supplier spun out of Vishay Intertechnology, making the force/torque measurement technology essential for the dexterous manipulation tasks at the heart of humanoid robotics.
Confidentiality agreements prevent VPG from naming its customer, so Wall Street has missed that the 'leading humanoid robot developer' design win disclosed since late 2023 lines up almost perfectly with Tesla's Optimus Gen 2 ramp.
Citron recommends going long VPG as the overlooked picks-and-shovels Tesla Optimus play, betting the Tesla connection — and a likely second humanoid customer such as Figure AI — becomes visible to the market.
At a $300M market cap, P/E 24x, EV/EBITDA 8.5x, P/B 0.9x with $25M+ net cash and consistent free cash flow, the stock screams undervalued and offers asymmetric upside as Optimus-driven revenue materializes.
The three reasons
- 1
VPG quietly supplies precision sensors to Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot program
- 2
Earnings-call breadcrumbs and timeline match Tesla's Optimus Gen 2 ramp exactly
- 3
$300M market cap at 8.5x EV/EBITDA, 0.9x book ignores Tesla-driven growth
KPIs cited
Pattern membership
Where this document fits across the library's 12 rhetorical / structural patterns.
Notable slides (3)
Notes
Atypical Citron piece: a LONG recommendation rather than the firm's signature short-seller fraud exposure. Thesis is essentially detective work — connecting earnings-call language about an unnamed humanoid customer to Tesla's Optimus timeline. No author named beyond 'Citron Research'. Format is a 4-page Word/PDF memo with embedded screenshots (a sensor-sourcing transcript snippet and a LinkedIn post from Vishay's Micro-Measurements unit referencing Figure AI), not a designed deck. Pages 3-4 are largely boilerplate disclaimer.