The Cybertruck hasn’t exactly sold well. That is why Elon Musk is getting the government to buy them. Meaning, the American tax-cow gets to pay for them – to the tune of something in the neighborhood of $80 million.
Possibly more than twice that.
Elon owns Space X, which is paid by the government to put Elon’s rockets into space. This is also an excellent vehicle for putting more money into Elon’s pockets – and not just via the government paying Space X to put rockets into space. Space X has reportedly purchased “hundreds if not thousands” of Cybertrucks. The same source says at least 1,000 of them so far and ultimately as many as 2,000 or more. A single Cybertruck costs just shy of $80,000 (to start). Assuming Elon uses Space X to get the American tax cow to pay for even 1,000 of these things, that would put $80 million in Elon’s pocket – via Tesla, of course. To make it appear that it’s just one company selling and another company buying; the “free market” and “capitalism,” you see.
Elon is very good at this sort of grift. It is why Elon is a near-trillionaire.
Tesla was marketed as an upstart innovator. A new kind of car company that was breaking all the rules that the hidebound “legacy” car companies were playing by. In fact, Tesla used the regs to line Elon’s pockets – and those of people who bought Tesla stock, which skyrocketed in value because of the regs. Specifically, the federal regs that served as a de facto electric vehicle production mandate, because the only vehicles that could comply with them were electric vehicles and – at the time – Tesla was the only company making nothing but electric vehicles.
The specific reg was the 50 MPG mandatory minimum Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) reg that required every car company’s fleet of new vehicles to average 50 MPG. The only way that could be complied with was to make more EVs and – again – Tesla sold only EVs. It thus had a huge advantage over the “legacy” car companies because it did not have to eat any compliance costs.
In fact, it was able to get the “legacy” car companies to pay them.
Twice.
First, by having to waste money developing their own EVs to deal with CAFE compliance. But there were also carbon taxes to be paid – in the form of “carbon credits” the legacy car companies had to buy to reduce their “carbon footprint,” caused by still making cars with engines – especially cars and trucks and SUVs with big engines. Guess who was “selling” those carbon credits? Elon, of course! Tesla was thus able to (effectively) finance itself by using the government to force its rivals – the “legacy” car companies – to buy those carbon credits.
The model for this – in the natural world – is that species of wasp that paralyzes another insect with its sting and then lays its egg on the helpless victim. The wasp’s larvae sustains its growth by feeding off the paralyzed victim, eventually reaching maturity and flying away – leaving the sucked-dry husk of the victim behind.
Such parasites always require new victims, of course – because eventually the host is sucked dry. Then it is time for a new host/victim. Elon has found that – like the wasp – there’s no more to be sucked via Tesla, which is shriveling up just like the poor host insect that got turned into living food for the wasp’s progeny.
It is not just the Cybertruck that isn’t selling, either. Teslas in general are not selling. There are a number of reasons why.
One, of course, is that the buyer pool for these devices has been mostly drained; i.e., the bulk of the people who want a Tesla already have one. The second reason is that EV Fever is cooling, like a corpse shortly after death. The third reason is that Teslas are not new anymore.
Every Tesla except the Cybertruck has been around for years. The current (2025) Model 3, for instance, hasn’t changed much since 2017 – almost six years ago. Not many people will pay brand-new prices for an aging brand-new vehicle. The top-of-the-line Tesla Model S is ancient. It dates back to 2012 – more than a decade ago. Tesla is having trouble selling many of these for the same reason a phone company would have trouble selling a 13-year-old smartphone.
But why spend money developing next-generation Teslas when you’ve already moved on to other grifts, like Space X? In the process, why not use Space X to extract that last remaining juices from Tesla and get the American tax cows to pay for it?
Does anyone remember when Musk assured the world Tesla would be selling 250,000 Cybertrucks annually? How many sold last quarter? About 5,300. How many have been made so far?
About 63,000.
If Elon can get Space X to buy say 2,000 of them from the Tesla – using money acquired from the government via contracts awarded to Space X – he can walk away with $160 million.
Meanwhile, he is already walking away from his Tesla grift, insofar as it is making the transition to it being an AI and robotics company that will undoubtedly make billions working with the government, meaning the tax cattle get to pay for it, again.
The man is a genius, in his own way. He is the personification of the corporate capitalist. The arch-grifter of our time. A guy who knows how to steal legally – and be worshipped by many for doing it.
PS: Whatever happened to DOGE? Never mind. That was so eight months ago.
. . .
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The Cyber Dump is an engineering and styling disaster.
It’s an engineering disaster because it needs twice the battery capacity of a regular electric car just to get the same amount of range, because it is much bigger and heavier than a regular electric car. Lacking curves, it certainly isn’t aerodynamic. Being made out of stainless steel, the body of the Cyber Dump is not easy to repair. Pee-lon seems to not understand that EV tech is not suited for large vehicles that need lots of range on a single fuel cycle like trucks and busses; rather EV tech is best for small city cars.
Styling-wise, it’s a hideous looking vehicle. I have no idea why any human with a working brain and good styling taste would want to be seen driving one of these ugly things. At least DeLorean was a somewhat okay looking car, despite its shortcomings. Automobile styling has really taken a nosedive over the past 2 decades, and the Cyber Dump is only accelerating that trend.
Anyone willing to pay $80k-100k for this ugly thing should get their head checked. Then again we have a few brain-dead internet “influencers” who make millions of dollars off even dumber fans willing to shell out that kind of money for one of these abominations. Just goes to show that money can’t buy taste or common sense…
Tesla truck looks like it came from a bad 70s/80s sci-fi movie. I’ve seen it in person multiple times and it is ferociously ugly. Not to mention it can’t actually function as a real truck.
I agree, Kong-
It looks like a prop from Judge Dredd!
[…] Is Elon Musk the conman GOAT? From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com: […]
Circular financing is old news; the entire ‘AI’ industry is build around that ‘business model’.
Having said that, if you look up one of the numerous videos on YT listing Elon’s past lies, it is a VERY long list.
He said he’d have had a rocket landing on Mars by 2022. Manned flight to follow by 2025.
He said he’d have Teslas driving all by themselves from LA to NYC.
He claimed to by now have Tesla Semis utterly dominating the tracking industry.
He claimed to have a Roadster out there, with a 600-mile range and rocket-style acceleration. A a ‘smack down to gasoline cars’, you see?
That was ‘ready to go’ almost 10 years ago.
He was going to have people traveling between NYC and DC at supersonic speeds via the Hyperloop.
He’d have quadriplegics walking, thanks to his Neuralink.
That’s far, far from an exhaustive list. Elon’s like a politician – he lies whenever his lips are moving.
He now talks about ‘Optimus’, the humanoid robot, which will eliminate the need for work. Everyone will be free to do whatever he/she/it/they/xe wants, while receiving ‘universal basic income’.
Meanwhile the robot can’t even pour a drink without falling over, should the remote operator forget to log off before removing his headphones.
Tesla will soon be running millions of robotaxis. Meanwhile, in the Austin trial, they apparently have more than 10 times the accident rate of human drivers. And that’s while the cars still have a ‘co-pilot’ in the passenger seat.
He will soon have ‘data centers’ in space – without explaining how he’ll lift all that weight up cost-effectively – especially considering that ‘Starship’ keeps blowing up and so far has not managed to lift anything to orbit, and how he’ll then protect the sensitive equipment from cosmic rays.
And let’s not mention the limited bandwidth that goes with it, due to it necessarily being a wireless connection.
The man certainly is a ‘genius’ – in the way the made men of Al Capone’s time used to be. He harvests the fruits organized violence.
With Al it was the Cosa Nostra, while with Elon it’s that of government mandates. How else can one become an ‘almost trillionaire’ without owning a single business that A) operates at a profit (‘carbon credits’ don’t count) and B) does not depend on government money?
He undoubtedly has many ‘friends’ in very high places, and that means VERY different rules apply to him than to the rest of us.
Well-said, John!
I do not understand the man’s apparent appeal to so many. He comes off as a special or near-special. And as you note, his serial bullshit ought to be obvious to any thinking person by now. But aye, there’s the rub. The “thinking person” part, I mean!
The bigger grift is Space X itself. Nothing is going into “space”…
Elon’sTrump’s CybergriftQE [digital currency counterfeiting] is back at the Federal Reserve. And you’ll never believe what happened next:
‘Gold and silver rose to new records on Friday. The most-active gold futures contract on Friday closed at a record for the 51st time this year, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The precious metal’s price has surged 66% this year to $4,387.30 a troy ounce. Silver’s most-active contract has soared 131% this year, hitting 14 records in the process. Both metals are on pace for their biggest gains since 1979.’ — WSJ
https://tinyurl.com/4s4rna55
Turns out Federal Reserve counterfeiting and war mongering go hand in hand with currency devaluation. At the Wharton School, they give the Orange Oaf books about monetary history. But he just ate the covers off them. 🙁
Cybertruck is an aluminum piece of junk. It weighs 6660 lbs!
That is over 3 tons. It looks really ugly. I saw two of these things yesterday and I said to myself, who are these fools who buy these things.
It’s Type 301 stainless steel, Jack. Type 301 will develop surface rust if you park it by the ocean for several years.
Maybe an aluminum-bodied Cybertruck would save a little weight. But an aluminum Cybertruck would be still be a three-ton p.o.s. for simps, poseurs … and now SpaceX IPO investors, who are going to get sandbagged with a whole lot full of this depreciated four-wheeled junk, if it don’t catch fire first.
The Space X facility responsible for building and launching the Starship is so close to the ocean that the main road from the factory to the launch pad is public right of way to access the beach, a state park.
The nearby Sea Turtle Rescue Inc. facility on the next barrier island up the coast always has at least one AC unit on the verge of falling apart due to corrosion.
The Gulf of America/Mexico (your choice) is one of the most brutal marine environments on the planet, and the affect on mechanical and electrical equipment in Texas extends as far inland as Austin south and east of where the Hill Country starts.
‘Carbon credits’ is the greatest grift of all time, getting your competition to finance your business at their expense. Elon gets the gold medal in grifting, but I am curious who was responsible for that law. Anyone recall if Eloon himself pushed that through Clowngress or was it just a group of the climate change crazies?
Cybertrucks sho’ is ugly. And impractical. And ugly.
I never see a lot of EVs in the parking lot at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility when we drive out there playing “space tourist”.
The facility is somewhat remote in terms of driving distance, figure an hour from a “fast” charger, and the dominant vehicle class in the employee lot is the half ton pickups from the big three US companies.
To be fair, maybe things have changed. We haven’t made the trip in a few years, since before the Texas Legislature gave Elon incorporation power over the property.
Starbase, TX.
Hate the game not the player. Elon is clever. He didn’t make the rules, he is better at manipulating them to his advantage than others are.
He is leveraging the fraud that is climate change to make money. The fraudsters have no choice but to praise him.
I may find the entire climate grift unethical, but I don’t get to control the playing field.
AI? Robotics?
Sex robots. Elon might sell a few of those, but, again, the price will be such that only a very small segment of the population will be able to afford them.
There will be subsidies there too, but those will be channeled through grift rebuilding the power grid with batteries and other equipment supplied by … Elon!
I don’t think society has sunk to the point where direct subsidies for sex robots are possible, but we subsidized commuting to work at “Ludicrous Speed”.
Give it a few years.
I’d be first in line for a Sex Robot if it could cook and agreed with me all the time.
“But however mysterious is nature , however ignorant the doctor, however imperfect the present state of physical science , the patronage and the success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful experiments.” ~ P. T. Barnum
Of course in the case of modern science there are no careful experiments, only university publicists and venture capital. But there are still real laborious men out there, who have to get the job done. They immediately see what’s going on. In the case of EVs, wishing won’t make it so, but the fools continue wishing.
Elmer Gantry or David Copperfield?
Gantry was the ultimate con-man. Copperfield could make things disappear. Musk will con people into playing his game wherein he makes your money disappear into his pocket.
Will Blackrock, State Street and Vanguard line up for the IPO? Doubtful. It’s just another Musk Rat promise of fairy dust brought in on unicorns.
Crash, meet Burn.
Are you kidding? This is going to be the biggest pump and dump the world has ever known. They can’t wait to flood the market with this junk. SpaceX believes they’re going to become a global telecom player. Their NASA contracts are just publicity. Maybe he will succeed, it’s a tough call. Not only does he have to get people to switch to his service, his infrastructure literally burns up every 5 years or so. When people discover that he’s going to have to replace every satellite every 5-7 years, which means the launch schedule will only increase, that profit might not ever come. Most telecom infrastructure is put in place and not touched for decades.
Once it becomes clear that while the potential market is massive, the practical market is going to be mobile and remote customers, not major metropolitan areas, the stock will slide into some valuation that better reflects the boutique state of the product. At least until the War Department signs that ‘UGE contract to supply satellite comms, but even that probably won’t be enough to really make the company profitable.
Hi Jim. From what I remember the price of the Cyber Dumpster almost doubled so that would have costed them plenty of sales. Being ugly with no towing range doesn’t help either.
Should be below Jim’s comment at the bottom.
Tesla was grifting with the aid of GovCo. Perhaps he will start building E-Bikes with ludicrous mode next.
Since NASA hasn’t had much success after all their German scientists died we’re sort of stuck with Space X. But at least Elon’s rockets work. I’m guessing that might be because he’s minimized DIE hires in his workplace unlike NASA’s.
Luckily the Epstein files were released. Yeah right…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/doj-misses-deadline-full-epstein-files-release-will-instead-stagger-protect-victims
>NASA hasn’t had much success after all their German scientists died.
LOL. 🙂
“But at least Elon’s rockets work.”
The ‘Starship’ certainly does not.
The program has already spent over $3B in taxpayers’ money and, according to the original schedule, should by now be landing probes on the moon.
Instead, it can’t even get to orbit with any load to speak of. Note that Elon claimed Starship would be lifting 100 tons plus AND have the second stage rocket recycled – something they’re as far away from as they were 5 years ago.
The man is a blatant liar, but he definitely has friends in high places, because he always gets away with it.
‘The model for this — in the natural world — is the [jewel] wasp that paralyzes another insect with its sting and then lays its egg in the helpless victim.’ — eric
It’s also the model of how Israel hijacked the White House and most of Clowngress into doing its business, rather than actually serving Americans. But today, a crack has developed in the little apartheid colony’s ugly chitin exoskeleton:
‘Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, a
conservativezionist Republican with close ties to President Trump, abruptly announced on Friday that she was suspending her campaign for governor and would give up her seat in Congress next year.’ — NYThttps://archive.ph/TSqlH#selection-709.0-713.100
YAYYYY!!!!
Stefanik is perhaps the most abject Israel Firster in Clowngress. To paraphrase Dr Philip Giraldi yesterday, ‘she would crawl on her belly like a reptile if Bibi were to ask her to do so.’ That’s what jewel wasp larvae in your brain do (yuck!).
Young Elise emulates a prostitute described in the gospel of Luke, as she weeps over Netanyahu’s stinky feet, washes them with her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and anoints them with expensive perfume.
If this were merely a private transaction, it would be none of our concern. But in the context of Stefanik’s role as a member of Congress, it’s treason. It’s a happy day for America that some zionist whores and traitors are now self-deporting from the halls of Clowngress.
Y’all don’t come back now, ya hear? 🙂
Good to hear that news Jim,
Maybe she’s the first of the rats leaving the sinking ship, hope more are to follow. Satanyahoo is making another trip to DC, probably to whip the lackeys into line to stick with his agenda. Bet he’s bringing the real Epstein files to remind everyone who’s really in charge. He and traitor Trump should swing from the same lampost.
Another R-party resignation:
‘Senator Cynthia Lummis, Republican of Wyoming, said on Friday that she would not seek re-election next year after serving one term.
‘Two of her colleagues, Senators Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, are running for governor in their respective states; two others, Senators Joni Ernst of Iowa and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, have declined to run for re-election altogether.’
https://archive.ph/pxNfc#selection-699.115-699.386
The wicked R-party is melting down before our eyes. Toxic Trump, with his psychotic, ransom-note midnight tweets, is ushering more of them to the exit every day.
Does Trump think welcoming a war criminal to the White House is going to help? It’s crass sellouts like his conspiring with Netanyahu that turn me away from the R-party, every time I briefly support its Socialism Lite, ‘mend not end’ policies as an alternative to full communism. But it’s actually no alternative at all.
There is only one War Party. No matter whom you vote for, you get John McCain. So why bother?
‘By definition, the Cybertruck is a commercial flop. Tesla boasted over 1 million reservations for the vehicle ahead of production, but it is estimated to have converted only about 60,000 of those reservations into orders since production began more than 2 years ago.’ — Electrek
Well, this is pretty shocking, coming from the fanbois at Electrek. It points to a six (6) percent conversion rate of reservations into sales. Let’s apply this conversion rate to the 130,000 reservations at Scout Motors: 130,000 x 0.06 = 7,800 projected sales. Charlotte, we’ve got a problem!
Since Elon controls both Tesla and Space X, selling surplus Soyboytrucks to SpaceX amounts to an accounting shell game. It takes advantage of the fact that SpaceX is not a public company yet, and can get away with such shenanigans. SpaceX is preparing for a massive $1.5 trillion IPO in late 2026. It’s so large that Elon supposes a SpaceX lot filled with idle electric trucks will hardly be noticed by investors.
They should notice. Elon is pushing SpaceX into non-economic transactions. If it were not in Repugniclown hands, the SEC could investigate and sanction SpaceX for these accounting shell games. Lock him up!
Guessing they didn’t refund the deposits on those “reservations” either.
He is a thief.