Musk buys from Musk: SpaceX acquired almost one in five Cybertrucks

The car manufacturer Tesla is struggling with a massive sales crisis for Cybertrucks. In order to prevent the numbers from collapsing, other Elon Musk companies such as SpaceX are buying up the pickups en masse. A good $100 million flows into the coffers.

Sales crisis for electric pickups

Tesla has been recording a significant decline in demand for months, with its electric pickup truck doing particularly poorly. In the fourth quarter of last year, just 7,000 units of the Cybertruck were registered in the US home market. But Elon Musk and his management had a trick here: In order to support sales and keep production numbers high, other Musk companies purchase a significant portion of the vehicles manufactured.

The official registration data shows the exact extent of internal sales. Almost a fifth of all models delivered in the last quarter of the year went directly to sister companies in the company network. Without the companies’ intervention, sales would have fallen by over 50 percent year-on-year. The group’s original goal was to sell 250,000 units of the vehicle annually.

According to  Bloomberg If you break it down, the majority of internal sales come from space company SpaceX. The distribution of vehicles acquired in the fourth quarter is divided into two areas, namely 1279 vehicles registered with SpaceX and 60 Cybertrucks with other companies (xAI, Neuralink, Boring Company).

Millions for Tesla

With a base price of around $70,000 (around €59,443), the transactions generated over $100 million (around €85 million) for the automaker. The purchases will continue in the current year. In January and February 2026, the affiliated companies registered an additional 225 units. A senior engineer on the project confirmed that SpaceX is replacing older combustion vehicles on the factory site with the electric pickup. The specific purpose of use at companies such as the artificial intelligence start-up xAI or the neurotechnology company Neuralink is not publicly documented.

Market observers naturally see the purchases as an attempt to utilize Tesla’s production capacity. A cheaper all-wheel drive model of the Cybertruck for $60,000 (around 50,951 euros), which has been available on the market since February 2026, is now expected to attract additional private customers. It is questionable whether this helps: According to surveys, Musk’s political positioning continues to influence customers’ purchasing decisions. The new registrations in the coming months will show how the market reacts to the adjusted pricing model.