Elon Musk is known for being very active on Twitter when it comes to promoting the products of the companies he’s involved with, Tesla included.

He wastes no opportunity to tell his followers about how Teslas trump their competitors, so it comes as a bit of a surprise to learn that he publicly admitted there’s a chance the Cybertruck could be a flop.

First, some context. TheTruthAboutCars posted an op-ed that brought up the possibility of the Cybertruck being Tesla’s first “flop” vehicle. More specifically, author Tim Healey predicted that Tesla’s truck wouldn’t sell well, leading the EV maker to work on a more conventional electric pickup soon after the Cybertruck's launch.

Everyone is obviously entitled to an opinion; for example, Tesla Owners Online retweeted the editorial, calling it “most definitely wrong.” Now, guess who replied to that retweet? That’s right, Elon Musk, and he didn’t do it to criticize the op-ed's author.

Gallery: Tesla Cybertruck

Somewhat surprisingly, the Tesla CEO admitted the possibility of the Cybertruck not becoming a commercial success. However, he didn't seem too concerned about that.

"There is always some chance that Cybertruck will flop, because it is so unlike anything else. I don’t care. I love it so much even if others don’t. Other trucks look like copies of the same thing, but Cybertruck looks like it was made by aliens from the future."

This statement from Musk clearly sounds like something you’re likely to hear from a genuine car guy, not an auto exec worried that his every word could be interpreted the wrong way by the public.

Mind you, some could argue the Tesla head honcho said this to temper expectations about the Cybertruck’s success, but that’s obviously an assumption we can’t verify.

All this does is highlight once more how opinion-splitting the Cybertruck has been ever since its reveal in November 2019. There are very few cars in the history of the automobile that have generated so many reactions for such a long time before even arriving in dealerships.

Whether you like the Cybertruck or not, the fact remains that Tesla has more than 1,000,000 pre-orders for it. Sure, not all of those will materialize into firm orders once the electric pickup (hopefully) enters production before the end of this year at Giga Texas. Still, even if only 10% do, it would still mean more than 100,000 Cybertrucks on the road.

 

 

 

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