Registration data from the US raises new questions about customer demand for the Cybertruck. A significant portion of the vehicles sold end up with other Musk companies.
• In the fourth quarter of 2025, 7,071 Cybertrucks were registered in the United States
• SpaceX purchased 1,279 Cybertrucks during this period, over 18 percent of all registrations
• Another 60 vehicles went to xAI, Boring Company and Neuralink
What S&P Global Mobility registration data shows
According to a report by Bloomberg on April 17, 2026, a total of 7,071 Cybertrucks were newly registered in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2025. SpaceX, Musk’s space company, accounted for 1,279 of these vehicles. This corresponds to more than 18 percent of quarterly registrations. Another 60 Cybertrucks went to other companies in Musk’s corporate portfolio, including xAI, The Boring Company and Neuralink. So almost one in five Cybertrucks registered in the quarter was delivered from one part of the Musk empire to another. The numbers come from registration data shared by S&P Global Mobility with Bloomberg.
The purchases continued in 2026. According to the same data, Musk’s companies purchased 158 more Cybertrucks in January and 67 more in February. With a starting price of around $70,000 per vehicle, the total value of the purchases adds up to more than $100 million. Without these sales to affiliates, Cybertruck registrations would have plunged 51 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Bloomberg.
Why the pattern raises questions about Cybertruck demand
The data reinforces the impression that consumer demand for the Cybertruck is falling short of initial expectations. Elon Musk Before the vehicle went on sale in 2023, Tesla had predicted that Tesla would deliver 250,000 Cybertrucks annually by 2025. Sam Fiorani, vice president at AutoForecast Solutions, told Bloomberg that Tesla is running out of buyers for the Cybertruck. Tom Libby, an analyst at S&P Global Mobility, framed the pattern in the same report: Such transactions are a way to maintain production when retail demand doesn’t keep pace with production volumes.
What Musk’s other companies do with the vehicles is only partially known. Photos and videos show rows of unused Cybertrucks on the SpaceX site in Texas. The pickup’s chief engineer stated on social media in October 2025 that SpaceX was replacing gasoline-powered emergency vehicles with cybertrucks. Some of the vehicles would be used as security vehicles. The industry portal Electrek had already reported in December 2025 that SpaceX could end up purchasing up to 2,000 Cybertrucks. Tesla, Musk, SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink did not comment when contacted, according to Bloomberg.
What this means for Tesla shares
Tesla shares have been under pressure for months. After the record high in December 2025, the paper lost around a fifth of its value by mid-April 2026. Tesla is facing its third consecutive annual decline in deliveries and was overtaken by BYD as the world’s largest electric car maker in 2025, according to Bloomberg data. While investor attention has recently shifted to future projects such as robotaxis and humanoid robots, the Cybertruck registration data shows how difficult the core business remains.
Despite weak sales, the Cybertruck continued to be the best-selling battery-electric pickup in the United States in the first quarter of 2026, according to data from Cox Automotive, although sales fell 45 percent. Tesla has not yet announced that it will discontinue the model. Musk had indicated at Tesla’s balance sheet presentation in January 2026 that the company could increase its focus on fleet sales to commercial customers. For investors, the question remains as to how reliable the Cybertruck’s previous sales figures actually are if a significant proportion of the registrations relate to transactions within the Musk Group.
Dominik Maier, editorial team at finanzen.net
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