Author: Friday, Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Overview:S&P Global Mobility registration data shows that SpaceX purchased 1,279 Cybertrucks in Q4 2025, accounting for 18% of the total registrations in the U.S. during the same period.

With purchases from companies like xAI, Musk's enterprises combined accounted for about 19% of the quarterly sales. After stripping related transactions, the Cybertruck's registration volume this quarter actually fell by 51% year-on-year.

Musk's companies are becoming the largest buyers of the Cybertruck.

According to a Bloomberg report on April 16, data from S&P Global Mobility shows that 7,071 Cybertrucks were registered in the U.S. in Q4 2025, of which SpaceX alone bought 1,279, accounting for over 18%. xAI, The Boring Company, and Neuralink purchased another 60 during the same period, totaling 1,339, approximately 19% of the total Q4 registrations. Estimated at a starting price of around $70,000, the total amount for this batch of related transactions is likely to exceed $100 million.

Sam Fiorani, Vice President of Global Automotive Forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, stated to Bloomberg: "Tesla's Cybertruck is losing buyers." Tesla, Musk, and SpaceX have not responded to requests for comments.

After stripping away related purchases, the actual decline of the Cybertruck reaches 51%

If excluded from the procurement volume of Musk's companies, the registration of the Cybertruck in Q4 would plummet by 51% year-on-year.

Electrek has been tracking this phenomenon since last October, when photos showed a large number of Cybertrucks being transported to SpaceX's facility at Starbase in Texas. Cybertruck chief engineer Wes Morrill confirmed on social media that SpaceX is using the Cybertruck to "replace support vehicle fleets." A documentary from the YouTube channel NASA Space Flight also captured rows of Cybertrucks parked at the SpaceX facility.

Related purchases have continued beyond Q4. According to the same dataset, Musk's companies registered another 158 vehicles in January 2026 and 67 vehicles in February.

From nearly 40,000 annual sales to 20,000, the Cybertruck has only achieved 8% of its target

According to Cox Automotive data, approximately 38,965 Cybertrucks were sold in the U.S. in 2024, making it the best-selling all-electric pickup that year. However, sales plummeted to about 20,300 in 2025, a year-on-year decline of 48.1%, achieving only 8.1% of Musk's 250,000 annual production target promised in 2019.

Entering 2026, the situation continued to worsen. In Q1, only 3,519 were delivered in the U.S., setting a record low since deliveries began, a year-on-year drop of 45.1%. Although Tesla launched the lowest-priced version starting at $59,990 in February, the first deliveries won't begin until June, and current order delivery estimates have extended to 2027.

Related transactions raise governance concerns

The controversy surrounding this transaction focuses on transparency. SpaceX is not a publicly traded company, and these purchases do not require the same level of public disclosure as fleet orders from Hertz or Uber. From an external perspective, a private company is absorbing inventory that a publicly traded company cannot sell, while both companies share the same CEO.

There have been precedents for business crossovers between Musk's companies: xAI uses Tesla Megapack batteries, Grok has been integrated into Tesla vehicles, and Tesla is collaborating with SpaceX on chip projects. However, it is still rare in the automotive industry to sell a poorly performing model on a large scale to a related enterprise controlled by the same CEO.

Tesla is facing the prospect of annual sales declining for the third consecutive year and has already been surpassed by BYD in global electric vehicle sales. The stock price has dropped about 20% since reaching an all-time high in mid-December last year. Whether the Cybertruck at the $60,000 price point can truly activate external demand will be the most crucial test going forward.