How bad are sales of Tesla\u2019s Cybertruck? Nearly 20% of the vehicles went to Elon Musk\u2019s other companies, raising questions about the vehicle\u2019s future <\/p>\n
The Cybertruck, Tesla\u2019s would-be competitor in the EV pickup truck market, has long since secured its place as the Edsel of the electric vehicle age. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been derided as unwieldy and ugly and unable to match other pickups in basic functionality. In the colorful take of Tesla critic Will Lockett<\/a>, it\u2019s \u201cthe vehicular form of halitosis\u201d and an \u201cick\u2019 on four wheels.\u201d <\/p>\n But one doesn\u2019t need words to describe how the Cybertruck has fared among the pickup-buying public; the numbers tell the story. <\/p>\n Get the latest from Michael Hiltzik <\/p>\n Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner.<\/p>\n By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n According to Cox Automotive\u2019s Kelley Blue Book, Tesla sold only 20,237 of the vehicles in 2025<\/a>, down 48.1% from the 38,965 sold the year before. The slide continued in the first quarter of this year<\/a>, Cox reported \u2014 3,519 sold, down 45.1% from the 6,406 sold in the year-earlier period. <\/p>\n But there\u2019s more to the story \u2014 or to be more precise, less. <\/p>\n In the fourth quarter of 2025, of the 7,071 Cybertruck U.S. registrations<\/a>, 1,279 went to SpaceX, the rocketship company headed by Tesla boss Elon Musk, which is planning an initial public stock offering sometime this year. An additional 60 were registered by other companies in the Musk empire, namely xAI, Neuralink and the Boring Co. <\/p>\n In other words, nearly 20% of all the Cybertrucks registered in the U.S. in the fourth quarter went to Musk\u2019s companies. Based on the Cybertruck\u2019s starting price of $70,000, that\u2019s the equivalent of $93.7 million in merchandise circulating within Musk\u2019s orbit rather than going to outside buyers.<\/p>\n In the fourth quarter of 2025, of the 7,071 Cybertruck U.S. registrations, 1,279 went to SpaceX<\/p>\n The figures were compiled by S&P Global Mobility and reported by Bloomberg<\/a>. I asked Tesla to comment but received no reply.<\/p>\n The transfers of Cybertrucks to other Musk companies raise questions about how he conflates the interests of his private companies and his public company (Tesla), arguably to the disadvantage of Tesla shareholders. More on that in a moment. <\/p>\n The sales numbers raise obvious questions about the future of the Cybertruck as part of Tesla\u2019s five-model lineup. They also undermine Musk\u2019s declared faith in the truck. When it was introduced in 2023, Musk asserted that he expected to sell 250,000 to 500,000 Cybertrucks a year<\/a> once manufacturing capacity was fully engaged. <\/p>\n It would be hard to find market experts who took that prediction seriously, but few probably expected the shortfall to be so steep. Cybertruck\u2019s 48.1% decline in 2025 sales compared with 2024 was the sharpest such decline<\/a> of any EV in the U.S. market over that period, in which EV sales generally slumped.<\/p>\n Initial Cybertruck sales of 38,965 in 2024 seemed almost to validate Musk\u2019s optimism. But negative perceptions took hold through the year and into 2025, starting with the ridicule the vehicle\u2019s boxy design attracted on the street. <\/p>\n Poor manufacturing quality has prompted U.S. regulators to order eight recalls of Cybertrucks since its introduction, culminating in the March 2025 recall<\/a> of almost every Cybertruck to correct the tendency of a stainless steel exterior panel to come off the vehicle at freeway speeds, posing a hazard to other drivers. <\/p>\n Online reports and videos showing Cybertrucks defeated by conditions such as uneven terrain and steep grades<\/a> that are routinely managed by rival pickups may also have sapped buyer enthusiasm for the model.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that the Cybertruck has problems that aren\u2019t shared with other EVs. One is that it can\u2019t be sold in European Union countries, because the EU has found that its exterior design can imperil pedestrians. <\/p>\n Nor do other EV manufacturers have to contend with public obloquy being showered on their leaders; Tesla sales in Germany cratered last year after Musk threw his support behind the extreme-right neo-Nazi party Alternative for Germany<\/a>. There, new Tesla vehicle registrations fell by 76.3%<\/a> in February 2025 from the same month a year earlier \u2014 that is, to 1,429 from 6,029. The decline continued all year, resulting in an overall decline of 48.4%<\/a>.<\/p>\n As my colleague Caroline Petrow-Cohen reported<\/a> last year, public distemper over Musk\u2019s position as the leader of DOGE, the quasi-governmental body that ran roughshod through the federal workforce after Donald Trump launched his second term, also may have cut into Tesla sales in the U.S. A study by Yale researchers last year estimated that Musk cost Tesla as many as 1.26 million car sales<\/a> since October 2022, when he acquired the social media platform Twitter and gave greater access on it to the far right and other extremist voices.<\/p>\n That said, Teslas remained the best-selling EVs in the U.S. market last year with nearly 60% of EV unit sales, according to Cox. Its full-year decline of 7% was exceeded by several other carmakers with EVs in their lineups, including BMW (down 16.7%), Kia (down 39.7%) and Ford (down 14.1%). <\/p>\n The U.S. EV market generally lost ground after the expiration of federal incentives last year, but many individual models slumped sharply, including Ford\u2019s all-electric version of its top-selling F-150 pickup, sales of which fell 18.5% from the year before (though it still outsold the Cybertruck).<\/p>\n Tesla\u2019s transfers of Cybertrucks to other Musk operations should concern Tesla shareholders, depending on how much, if anything, SpaceX and the other companies paid for the vehicles. In arm\u2019s-length transactions between related parties, the transfers should be marked at prices resembling those on the open market, whether individual or fleet sales. <\/p>\n Tesla, however, hasn\u2019t publicly disclosed these deals in its financial filings thus far, even to the extent of disclosing whether they\u2019ve taken place at all. It would be interesting to know how SpaceX is using its Cybertrucks, since it wouldn\u2019t seem to need a fleet to transport equipment headed for space in the back of pickup trucks. Why Musk\u2019s AI or neurological companies need any such vehicles is hard to gauge.<\/p>\n As it happens, however, Tesla investors don\u2019t seem to have been fazed by Bloomberg\u2019s report. Tesla shares closed in Monday\u2019s trading at $392.51, higher than they were on April 15, the day before Bloomberg published, when they closed at $391.95. <\/p>\n This wouldn\u2019t be the first time that Musk has melded his personal interests with those of his public shareholders. The prototypical such action occurred in 2016, when he orchestrated Tesla\u2019s purchase of his SolarCity for $2.8 billion<\/a>, a 35% premium from the latter\u2019s trading price. (Investment manager Jim Chanos, who had short positions in both companies, called the deal a \u201cshameful example of corporate governance at its worst.\u201d) <\/p>\n At the time, Tesla\u2019s seven board seats were held by Musk and four of his cronies, including his brother Kimbal, and SolarCity\u2019s board included Musk and two of his cousins. On that occasion, Tesla investors turned queasy, pushing Tesla shares down by more than 10% the day the deal was announced.<\/p>\n Musk defended the deal as a triumph of clean energy industry synergy, but one struggles to find significant gains from the linkup. Energy generation and storage, which would cover SolarCity\u2019s business, accounted for about 13.5% of Tesla\u2019s revenue in 2025, nearly a decade after the merger.<\/p>\n What role the Cybertruck \u2014 indeed, any Tesla vehicles \u2014 will play in the company\u2019s future remains murky. Musk recently has talked about shifting the company\u2019s focus to AI, robotaxis and humanoid robots, but these all resemble pipe dreams. AI is more and more a marketing term with less meat on its bones than the incessant publicity about it suggests and Tesla\u2019s robotaxi venture today consists of about a dozen vehicles tooling around Austin, Texas, with human supervisors in the car or near at hand. <\/p>\n Musk last year projected that humanoid robots would generate \u201c$30 trillion in revenue<\/a>\u201d for Tesla, though he acknowledged that he was \u201cjust guessing\u201d and that there would be a \u201clong way to go between here and making one billion robots a year.\u201d As I\u2019ve reported, however, even some robotics experts argue that giving workaday robots humanoid features makes no sense functionally<\/a> and is likely to be abandoned once manufacturers seriously contemplate how household robots should look and function.<\/p>\n None of this means that Tesla might not be able to recapture its mojo in the EV market. Consumer interest in EVs tends to rise and fall in lockstep with gas prices. EV makers had a tough 2025 in the U.S. But that could turn around this year if the runup in gas prices<\/a> caused by President Trump\u2019s Iran adventure continues to drive up the cost of oil. <\/p>\n