Tesla offloads Cybertrucks to SpaceX and xAI as sales slump continues

[midian182]

Facepalm: Elon Musk appears to be improving Cybertruck sales figures by selling large numbers to his own companies. Truckloads of the eight-times-recalled electric pickups have been arriving at SpaceX and xAI, boosting sales of a vehicle that sold just over 5,000 units in Q3 2025.

Musk had high hopes for the Cybertruck. With its advanced tech and cyberpunk looks, he told Tesla investors in 2023 that he planned for the company to be producing around 250,000 units annually by 2025.

However, the reality is very different from Musk's prediction. The truck is currently selling about 20,000 units per year, missing his target by more than 90%.

According to a report from electrek, Musk is addressing the problem of Cybertruck inventory build-up by getting his companies to buy hundreds or even thousands of Cybertrucks.

The publication writes that several truckloads of Cybertrucks were spotted being delivered to xAI's offices over the weekend. SpaceX, meanwhile, took delivery of hundreds of the EVs at its Starbase, Texas, facility over the last week, and it is expected to receive hundreds, if not thousands, more over the coming weeks.

Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill confirmed that both SpaceX and Tesla are in the process of replacing their support fleet with Cybertrucks, claiming that it was part of the plan from the truck's engineering stage.

It's estimated that Tesla sold just 4,306 cybertrucks in Q2 2025, marking a 50.8% decrease compared to the 8,755 vehicles that were sold during the same period in 2024. Figures were up slightly to 5,385 trucks sold in Q3, but that was mostly due to the rush ahead of the $7,500 EV tax credits expiring – and it was still down 63% compared to a year earlier.

There have been around 16,000 Cybertrucks sold this year. With no EV tax credits as an incentive, sales are expected to be even worse in Q4 – though Musk's company purchases could soften the blow.

There were reports that Cybertruck production was briefly suspended in December amid concerns over slowing sales. A similar report a month later claimed workers were taken off the truck's production line and moved to a Model Y line.

In addition to its high price and less-than-promised range, buyers have been put off the Cybertruck by the eight recalls it has been subjected to during its short life, including one for the accelerator pedal potentially getting stuck in the interior trim and causing uncontrolled acceleration. Musk's friendship with Donald Trump, then his public falling out with the president, didn't help matters, either.

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Tesla offloads Cybertrucks to SpaceX and xAI as sales slump continues

 

[bexwhitt]

It's a shame people have eyes and use them to decide what looks right and what looks stupid.

 

[Puiu]

It's a shame people have eyes and use them to decide what looks right and what looks stupid.

it objectively looks stupid

 

[James321]

Fugly car, overpriced and junk.

What did he expect, Really?

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Most people that have an EV are the ones that already knew they were out to get one. Those that don't have one and want one, don't usually have one because they can't afford the cost of it or they don't have a place they can actually plug in the car to be charged at night (think apartment complexes or just can't outright afford to get a proper charger installed at their home).

The market is saturated with EVs and there are only so many people out there willing to purchase one because it fits their needs.

As for Musk, what he does with the vehicles his company purchases, that's up to him. Who cares if he buys a bunch of EVs for SpaceX and uses them as company vehicles. That's no different than the USPS wanting to spend billions to upgrade their aged vehicles from ICE to EV models.

This article is stupid and shouldn't be posted here; I think it's been posted here because of the bias that TS seems to have has against Musk.....OR.....they're just copying some other stupid article written somewhere else and posted here on Techspot because it mentions the Cybertruck and TS thinks somehow it's worthy of adding to the constant EV crap that's posted on this site.

 

[candle86]

I mean they're ugly but who cares who buys them. You will never ever get me behind the wheel of an EV, there's a reason I drive a 1974 pickup, I don't have to meet EPA regulations which means I can burn wood gas and bonus I get lots of charcoal I can sell as well. Can't do that with those fuel injectors but the government can't ban trees, and the courts are already very very clear you can't outlaw something that is already legal it's grandfathered out naked prevent the transfer of it to somebody else they could claim that it can't be transferred but it's the same reason people have had guns before the NFA went to affect got to keep some things of that nature. So you will never get me in one of those terrible terrible EVs.

 

[Dr Roboto]

Elon Musk appears to be improving Cybertruck sales figures by selling large numbers to his own companies

As if Elon had not already shown himself to be enough of a con man. He just finds new ways to impress.

Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill confirmed that both SpaceX and Tesla are in the process of replacing their support fleet with Cybertrucks, claiming that it was part of the plan from the truck's engineering stage.

Yeah, sure it was. You just keep toeing the company line like a good little Muskite.

 

[Haaky]

Why, in Gods name would anyone want to buy that ugly piece of garbage?
It is without a doubt the biggest RIPOFF so far in history.
Obviously who ever buys one of these is compinsating for a tiny penis

 

[torvuswalds]

F A F O.

 

[Kirby1]

Most EV buyers are left leaning and Musk is a fascist nazi, and the cars are bad.

Funny how dumb Musk is to kill sales in his own company.

 

[Revolution 11]

This is just financial shenanigans, shuffling money from one entity to another to make the balance sheet look better when there should be independence between a public automotive corporation and a private corporation.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

250,000 cyber trucks a year seems really optimistic (even setting aside the political issue).

This was always going to be a more niche product with the cyber punk design. Some people think it looks cool, but not most people.

 

[wiyosaya]

Sounds like fElon is borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

Most EV buyers are left leaning and Musk is a fascist nazi, and the cars are bad.

Funny how dumb Musk is to kill sales in his own company.

It shows fElon's true genius.

IMO, fElon is a prime example of the inverse relationship between the size of the mouth, and the size of the brain.

 

[wiyosaya]

As if Elon had not already shown himself to be enough of a con man. He just finds new ways to impress.

To those who are easily impressed. To the rest, he just finds ways to make more of a dolt of himself.

Yeah, sure it was. You just keep toeing the company line like a good little Muskite.

The world is full of liars spin doctors these days. Truth means nothing.

Then again, it seems those that spin doctor have no clue what truth is, and if they do know what truth is, they eschew it since it does not fit their reality.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

This article is stupid and shouldn't be posted here; I think it's been posted here because of the bias that TS seems to have has against Musk.....OR.....they're just copying some other stupid article written somewhere else and posted here on Techspot because it mentions the Cybertruck and TS thinks somehow it's worthy of adding to the constant EV crap that's posted on this site.

If you pay attention to the authors of stories like these, you'll notice it's not TS as a whole but individual writers with said bias (two at most). I also haven't seen any syndicated stories on TS, but it's very possible AI is used to rewrite/report on another article. Anyways, this article is actually mostly fair. The Cybertruck definitely didn't achieve its original goals and turned into a niche vehicle.

Something particular to note is Electrek (the source) definitely has a bias against Elon Musk. They write stories that aren't very important to create bad news, and often TS cites them (as do other news outlets). The lead editor (Fred) has had a love-hate relationship with Tesla and is currently in the hate stage. At this point, he may never recover.

As if Elon had not already shown himself to be enough of a con man. He just finds new ways to impress.


Yeah, sure it was. You just keep toeing the company line like a good little Muskite.

You might get a reply from Rob on that one, he's probably the opposite of "a good little Muskite" LOL. In reality though, the source article is probably correct that the main reason why these vehicles were bought in bulk now is the tax credit was coming to an end. Companies (and consumers) were able to purchase a vehicle (with a contract) by September 30 and still receive a tax credit without a delivery being completed. This is the rebate SpaceX qualifies for these purchases: https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/commercial-clean-vehicle-credit

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Most EV buyers are left leaning and Musk is a fascist nazi, and the cars are bad.

Funny how dumb Musk is to kill sales in his own company.

You say that, but Tesla's sales only went down by about 10-15% YoY. Let's stay rooted in reality that most people probably don't care or enjoy the car more than they care about someone else's politics.

What's more important to consumers than politics is money. I'd wager sales will shift more dramatically (in the US) as a result of the ending of the clean vehicle tax rebate. I'm guessing it'll be less of an impact than expected though, partially because other automakers are canceling EVs (reducing supply to cancel reduced demand). More important though is that Tesla just introduced 2 lower priced vehicles, and those will be sold globally (not just the US).

 

[bexwhitt]

it objectively looks stupid

I'll give you that, some people think they look cool, but not enough to make it a viable product.

 

[Axeia]

250,000 cyber trucks a year seems really optimistic (even setting aside the political issue).

This was always going to be a more niche product with the cyber punk design. Some people think it looks cool, but not most people.

I was thinking the same, that's awfully optimistic for a car that was always going to be mostly restricted to the northern American market.

Just the price excludes most of the world. Then the next big rich market (Europe) has regulations against sharp angled vehicles to avoid pedestrians getting sliced in half.

So it's causing towards a niche in mostly a single market. 250k of them a year seems... Optimistic

 

[tehxion]

There is utility potential in these trucks, basically a big portable battery. Bang 100 of these next to a data centre and you get a massive UPS with storage for renewables or off peak power. With dwindling sales repurposing like this kinda makes sense. Perhaps that is how they end their life, or can they be resold later with very low miles, but some battery wear.

Maybe we will see a bunch of them power an outdoor festival or something neat in the future.

 

[Ecurb]

"A completely new model truck in the U.S. typically experiences between three and six recall campaigns within its first two model years, with the first 12 months being the most recall-heavy period." Perplexity.ai

 

[Y2JB47]

You say that, but Tesla's sales only went down by about 10-15% YoY. Let's stay rooted in reality that most people probably don't care or enjoy the car more than they care about someone else's politics.

What the hell are you talking about? Tesla sales have completely collapsed.

Musk is a literal Nazi and anyone viewing his actions in good faith knows this.

 

[Kirby1]

You say that, but Tesla's sales only went down by about 10-15% YoY. Let's stay rooted in reality that most people probably don't care or enjoy the car more than they care about someone else's politics.

Two things;

Tesla's sales fell a lot more than 12% after he did the Nazi salute. They didn't falls as much in the US as you would expect, but they fell more like 70% in the EU and they fell a lot in China at roughly the same time but for totally different reasons.

It's also not the full story to say their sales fell 12% YoY even if that was the correct number because they didn't just fall from the year before, they fell from their expect growth figures. The EV market is growing so any EV manufacturer who is just doing average should see growth, but Tesla is losing sales in a market they more or less created. In the US their sales were expect to go up 15% YoY before the Nazi salute, so their sales actually went down closer to 30%, and that's just in the US. In the rest of the world the sales drop is as high as 80% when you factor in the loss of any growth.


Bonus note, it's not just because Musk is a Nazi, it's also because the cars are just not very good compared to other offerings on the market today, and that is especially true in China where there is a lot more competition in the EV market. Likely the main reason the drop wasn't as high as you might expect in the US is because the EV market here is way behind China and Europe, and yet there are still a lot of better options vs Tesla.


Even without Musk being a Nazi, the EV market is very political in the US simply because the right believes EV cars are not as macho, and it's not at all out of touch with reality to point out that the right really does see it that way. EV sales have always been much much lower in red states vs blue states, and Trump panders to the older generation who just want to go back to the coal mining days. It's ignorant to suggest it's not political and I think anyone who says that is making a very clear and obvious bad faith argument.

 

[Megalomaniac]

GM electric trucks are way better.
I would NEVER buy a Cybertruck.
I drove the Cyberbeast and the build quality was terrible.
The FSD wasn't that great either. It was definitely interesting tech, but it's too dangerous here in New York City.
The racist, antisemite Afrikaner can keep it!

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

What the hell are you talking about? Tesla sales have completely collapsed.

Musk is a literal Nazi and anyone viewing his actions in good faith knows this.

Two things;

Tesla's sales fell a lot more than 12% after he did the Nazi salute. They didn't falls as much in the US as you would expect, but they fell more like 70% in the EU and they fell a lot in China at roughly the same time but for totally different reasons.

It's also not the full story to say their sales fell 12% YoY even if that was the correct number because they didn't just fall from the year before, they fell from their expect growth figures. The EV market is growing so any EV manufacturer who is just doing average should see growth, but Tesla is losing sales in a market they more or less created.

In Q1 2025, Tesla's GLOBAL sales fell by 13% from Q1 2024. In Q2, Tesla's sales fell by 13.5% YoY and increased 14.1% QoQ. In Q3, Tesla's rose by 7.4% YoY and 29.4% QoQ. You can easily check for yourself here whether I'm right (I just calculated these numbers myself): https://ir.tesla.com/

You can talk about specific markets all you'd like, but Tesla doesn't report those numbers (so they're only estimates) and don't represent the whole picture. Plus, anyone can cherry pick numbers. For instance, in May of this year, Tesla sales in Norway went up by 213% from the year before. Why do we care about this?

Also, your claim at first was that Musk killed sales in his own company (past). Now you're suggesting you meant that he was killing expected growth (future)? And if you'd like to compare numbers to the competition, why don't you post their market number changes, as well as their total sales? A lot of their competitors have also experienced decreases in EV sales.

Also please cite sources, your entire argument makes zero sense. Sales are not 0 as you originally suggested. It is not a growing impact as time moves on, but a flat impact. As I suggested, 2025 as whole will probably have a 10-15% sales decrease YoY.

 

[p51d007]

Hey, if that's what you want, so be it, but to me that is the UGLEST thing I've ever seen!