Musk Defends Ending Cybertruck Output and Refunding Deposits

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Tesla will end Cybertruck production in about eight months. Elon Musk says the truck's order rate is far higher than what the company can build.

A truck that sold far below the hype

Musk has said reservations for the truck ballooned to 1 million. He also predicted that Tesla would sell around 250,000 a year. Customers got the first trucks in late 2023.

Tesla does not report Cybertruck sales as a separate line. Industry experts estimate about 71,000 were sold from the first deliveries in November 2023 onward. The reservations never turned into that many sales.

Buyers inside Musk's circle

Many sales came from other Musk businesses. According to its S-1 filing ahead of an IPO, SpaceX bought $131 million worth of Cybertrucks from Tesla in 2025. Musk leads SpaceX and is its largest shareholder.

xAI, another of his companies, bought $430 million worth of Tesla Megapacks for its data centers before it merged with SpaceX. Megapacks are a different product from the truck.

Musk's case for stopping

Musk posted on X on Monday. He said the Cybertruck was not unprofitable. The real reason, he wrote, is that the "opportunity cost of the complexity of Cybertruck is vastly outweighed by the value of incremental Cybercab production."

Put plainly, his view is that the factory space and resources tied up in the truck would earn more if they went to Cybercab robotaxis. Last week he said Tesla plans to use that space for more two-seater Cybercabs.

What happens until production stops

Tesla will try to build as many Cybertrucks as it can before the cutoff. Musk added that the company will "have to return deposits for a lot of people."

Sales had lagged for months, and the shutdown could give them a last lift.

Source: TechCrunch