Owners of Tesla’s Cybertruck hoping to trade in their vehicles to Tesla dealerships are now learning that the value of their recently purchased truck has declined considerably in a short time. It’s another black eye for Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Electrek reported on Sunday that Tesla is offering Cybertruck owners $65,400 for their model year 2024 vehicles—down from the $100,000 those trucks were originally sold for. That is a decline of 34.6% in a year. By comparison, Electrek noted that traditional pickup trucks usually drop 20% in value in a year and only hit the mark offered by Tesla after 3-4 years.
Musk touted the odd-looking Cybertruck as a technological marvel and received enormous media coverage when the truck was first announced and as it rolled out. Initially, Tesla said that 1 million advance reservations had been made for Cybertrucks—but ultimately only 40,000 of those converted to sales.
The data point about Tesla trade-ins are another bad mark in a bad year for the automaker. This year Tesla reported a sales decline for the first time in company history and profits have dropped considerably.
The bad news has coincided with Musk’s decision to go all-in for President Donald Trump. Musk donated millions in service of Trump’s election in 2024 and has been a key figure in his administration, leading the DOGE team that has laid waste to multiple U.S. government agencies.
Musk’s highly visible role as a Trump cheerleader and enabler has attracted mockery and protest. He kicked things off by offering a Nazi salute on Trump’s Inauguration Day in January and things have continued downhill since.
His actions at federal agencies kicked off the “Tesla Takedown” series of protests at Tesla dealerships, which Musk has conspiratorially described as a “paid” phenomenon, though they aren’t.
As the company’s fortunes have been dragged down, Trump has tried to help. In March, Trump put on a sales show for Tesla cars on the grounds of the publicly owned White House. He read from Tesla sales materials, trying to convince the public to buy his donor’s wares.
“This man has devoted his energy and his life to doing this and I think he’s been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people,” Trump said.
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The Trump dog and pony show doesn’t appear to have worked.
Musk claimed on Tuesday that he was stepping back from politics to focus on his businesses like Tesla, adding that he has “done enough.” But the next day he was hovering in the Oval Office, looking on as Trump pushed a racist “white genocide” conspiracy theory while speaking to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Musk, who is originally from South Africa, has pushed many of the same falsehoods on his X account.
Companies that follow Trump’s path haven’t done well. Target recently reported that sales are down after it adopted Trump’s anti-diversity crusade, for instance. By virtue of its affiliation with Musk and his attachment to Trump, Tesla is suffering a similar problem.
Cybertruck, and other Tesla vehicles, have become synonymous with intolerance and incompetence, and that isn’t something people want to drive home.
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