Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk said Thursday in an exchange with fans on Twitter that there’s “always some chance” his company’s forthcoming Cybertruck will “flop.” Nonetheless, Musk plans to keep the Cybertruck “production design” almost exactly the same as its show car — a giant metal trapezoid.
But he also said he “doesn’t care” about any risk that the Cybertruck could flop, because he personally loves its design.
He wrote, “To be frank, 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.”
The Cybertruck’s 2019 launch event caused a stir due to the unusual design of the vehicle and because Musk asked Tesla design leader Franz von Holzhausen to try to smash the vehicle’s windows, which he did. Von Holzhausen threw a metal ball at one of the windows, surprising Musk when the glass shattered, though it stayed in place.
Despite the launch disaster and the uncertainty about when Tesla can start delivering the Cybertruck, the $100 orders poured forth. Musk boasted the company saw 250,000 within about a week of the Cybertruck’s debut.
In September at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting and Battery Day event, Musk disclosed that Tesla had received so many Cybertruck orders that the company stopped counting. “The orders are gigantic,” he said, “.. well over half a million orders. I think maybe six hundred thou— it’s a lot, basically. We stopped counting.”
The car maker opened Friday up $3.87 to $654.47.