Tesla Cybertruck sales inflated: SpaceX bought 1,279 units

4/18/2026 at 12:24:03 AM

The real question is who bought the other 5,742 of them

by quicklywilliam

4/18/2026 at 5:25:57 AM

I'm telling you, every time I see someone driving one it's the biggest dweeb alive

by straydusk

4/18/2026 at 3:04:09 AM

How is this deemed not a conflict of interest? SpaceX is almost totally funded by the government. You can't use government funds to buy your own products.

by bmitc

4/18/2026 at 8:42:47 AM

You must be new here

by throwa356262

4/18/2026 at 4:44:24 AM

Well, clearly you can.

by ulfw

4/18/2026 at 1:45:09 AM

YouTube influencers who are showing off how successful they are and everyone should buy their courses to copy their success. Exhibit A for success: Cybertruck in background.

by thelastgallon

4/18/2026 at 3:09:20 AM

It's kind of weird. I haven't met a single person in real life that doesn't basically giggle out of embarrassment for the driver when a Cybertruck goes by. No one I know thinks they're cool in the slightest, and they're openly laughed at. It's bizarre that anyone thinks they're cool.

by bmitc

4/18/2026 at 2:23:14 AM

At least 5-10 people in the apartment I live in, plus more on the streets of Nashville.

by ls612

4/17/2026 at 7:24:09 PM

This also happens in the Startup community....

by jazz9k

4/17/2026 at 8:15:56 PM

It is very popular in many industries; when it is accomplished by convincing re-sellers to take in more stock than they desire, it is called 'stuffing the channel'. Book publishers are famous for doing this to achieve 'best-seller' status.

by nickff

4/17/2026 at 9:51:20 PM

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47799420

by ChrisArchitect

4/17/2026 at 8:33:29 PM

Currently no in stock new or used and a two month delivery estimate.

by hnburnsy

4/18/2026 at 1:48:29 AM

Wait for SpaceX to resell these to Tesla at a significant loss. Tesla sells these used at a decent profit, boosting both numbers and profits.

by thelastgallon

4/17/2026 at 9:06:05 PM

> two month delivery estimate.

Their website for my zip said two weeks.

Which seems like a long while, seeing as how their big "can't-call-it-a-dealsership" nearby has like 20-30 sitting on the lot for a while. I imagine they'd make their two week estimate early.

There's about 30 or so listed used online around me.

by vel0city

4/17/2026 at 7:28:49 PM

What would the alternative have been? Not reporting that they were purchased at all?

The premise here seems to be that spacex purchased the trucks for the sole purpose of inflating the tesla reporting, which of course makes no sense from a business perspective

by jgbuddy

4/17/2026 at 8:01:56 PM

Elon keeps doing things that make no sense from a business perspective and he’s defended by people who exclaim it couldn’t have happened like that because it makes no sense from a business perspective.

by browningstreet

4/17/2026 at 8:51:16 PM

The general behavior of doing things that don't particularly make sense from a business perspective, to make numbers look better, is unfortunately common. People exploit it by doing things like trying to get a discount near end of quarter.

by nitwit005

4/18/2026 at 3:07:16 AM

I'm fairly certain that a lot of Musk's recent moves of creating that umbrella AI company, doing things like this, etc. are all to pass around the dept he took on when he purchased Twitter. He's effectively money laundering his debt through a ton of shenanigans.

by bmitc

4/18/2026 at 8:21:47 AM

The unfortunate corollary to that reasoning: Elons shenanigans and election interference were well aimed efforts to create favourable regulations and a regulatory that would directly enrich him and enable more shenanigans.

Seen as a corrupt investment, with DOGE data access in the middle, buying an election through Twitter has been directly profitable for Elon with obvious and visible downstream upsides for his financiers partners and collaborators in such shenanigans.

by bonesss

4/17/2026 at 10:17:57 PM

“This makes no sense” => “I don’t understand the purpose”

The most obvious motive is juicing the numbers.

by solarkraft

4/18/2026 at 4:18:18 AM

> What would the alternative have been? Not reporting that they were purchased at all?

They could have purchased any other vehicle, from any other manufacturer. Any other heavy duty truck would be a better choice than the Cybertruck, which is impractical and poorly designed.

> The premise here seems to be that spacex purchased the trucks for the sole purpose of inflating the tesla reporting, which of course makes no sense from a business perspective

It's almost like the owner of SpaceX, which is doing quite well right now, made a decision designed to benefit the owner of Tesla, which is struggling to sell a bunch of 2-ton chrome shitboxes. Wonder what those two individuals have in common. I'm sure that anyone, even you, will be able to figure it out with a little googling.

by solid_fuel

4/18/2026 at 9:19:18 PM

They're around 6,600lbs (3,000kg) so maybe even 3 tons of shitbox!

by snypher

4/19/2026 at 12:07:36 PM

Just the fact that this comment has been voted down just goes to show that Hacker News is no longer the place it once was. Pretty sad.

by darthnebula

4/17/2026 at 10:10:47 PM

> The premise here seems to be that spacex purchased the trucks for the sole purpose of inflating the tesla reporting, which of course makes no sense from a business perspective

I think you missed the part where Tesla is overevaluated and any bad news could utterly crush it's share value.

by aucisson_masque

4/17/2026 at 10:48:56 PM

It makes no sense? When the companies have the same CEO?

by qq66

4/17/2026 at 7:34:48 PM

Except when the CEO of publicly owned Tesla gets paid based on performance.

by benj111

4/18/2026 at 12:07:38 AM

lol bro

Fucking of course it makes sense they are both owned by Elon.

by none2585