Tesla to Refund Cybertruck Deposits as Production Ends in Eight Months

Tesla will stop building the Cybertruck in roughly eight months and refund a wave of customer deposits, CEO Elon Musk said in an X post on Monday.

Musk defended the shutdown as a math decision, not a rescue from a money-loser. He said the truck was not unprofitable. Tesla is ending production because the "opportunity cost of the complexity of Cybertruck is vastly outweighed by the value of incremental Cybercab production," Musk wrote.

The mechanism is simple. Tesla can earn more from the factory floor by building two-seater Cybercab robotaxis than by building the steel-clad truck. Musk said last week that Tesla plans to use the Cybertruck's production space for the Cybercab line.

What happens to deposits?

Tesla will push output as high as possible before the line goes dark, Musk said. Even so, the company will "have to return deposits for a lot of people," he wrote. That admission confirms demand below the build plan for the final months of production.

How far did sales fall short?

The gap between promise and reality is stark. Musk once claimed 1 million reservations for the truck and predicted annual sales of about 250,000 units. Industry experts estimate total sales of roughly 71,000 Cybertrucks since the first deliveries in November 2023. Tesla does not break out Cybertruck sales in its own reporting, so the 71,000 figure rests on outside analysis.

The first deliveries in late 2023 looked like the start of a breakthrough hit. The reservations never converted at scale.

Who actually bought the trucks?

A notable share of demand came from Musk's own corporate orbit. SpaceX, now known as SpaceXSI and led by Musk as its largest shareholder, purchased $131 million worth of Cybertrucks from Tesla in 2025, according to the S-1 registration statement filed ahead of its IPO. Another Musk company, xAI, bought $430 million worth of Tesla Megapacks for its data centers before it merged with SpaceX.

Those related-party purchases cushioned a truck whose retail sales lagged for months.

Could a farewell bump change the picture?

Scarcity can lift demand for a retiring model, and the Cybertruck may see a final sales bump now that production is closing. But even that boost is unlikely to bring demand anywhere near the projections Musk made several years ago, when 250,000 annual units looked achievable.

The strategic weight now sits entirely on the Cybercab. Every truck Tesla stops building frees capacity for a robotaxi Musk has positioned as the company's next volume product — and the Cybertruck's 71,000 units will stand as the final tally of one of Tesla's most hyped bets.