Elon Musk announced Tesla will halt Cybertruck production next year, and the establishment press wasted no time turning real owners' frustration into another front in their war on the man who opened X to free speech.
Musk broke the news on X: Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas winds down "around the middle of next year" to make room for self-driving Cybercabs. For the people who bought in—contractors, families, everyday Americans who put down deposits and waited months—that means real uncertainty about parts, service, and whether pending orders will ever be filled.
WIRED covered the fallout, and the story splits cleanly in two. The first half gives voice to genuine owners who feel burned. Michael Goldman, a Palm Springs contractor who administers the 82,000-member Facebook group Cybertruck Owners Only, told WIRED he's been swamped with frantic messages. "So everybody in my group, they are not happy," Goldman said. He considered buying a backup Cyberbeast but backed off when the price jumped another $8,000. "That's why I want to call him out on it," he said of Musk.
Troy Meekhof, known online as "the Cybertruck Guy," posted directly to Musk: "I can't help but think this is Tesla's own unwillingness (or incompetence) to make Cybertruck a success. Where was the price cuts? Where were the advertisements? Where is range extender?"
Those are legitimate gripes from paying customers. But WIRED couldn't resist loading the lede with editorial shiv work. The outlet framed the shutdown as the natural consequence of "weak sales, delayed deliveries, inflated pricing, numerous recalls, and connection to Musk's far-right MAGA politics." Note the construction: real operational problems stacked next to a political smear as though they carry equal weight. The message to readers is clear—Musk's politics killed the truck, not supply chain headaches or a price tag that climbed past what working buyers could stomach.
This is the playbook. Every product hiccup, every business decision, every customer complaint becomes a vehicle to punish Musk for dismantling the censorship apparatus at X. The same press corps that spent years ignoring Tesla's recalls when Musk played the progressive darling now treats every production adjustment as proof that wrongthink has consequences.
The owners WIRED interviewed don't sound like culture warriors. They sound like Americans who spent serious money on a truck they love and want straight answers about what happens next. Goldman said he doesn't want to turn his Cybertruck into a "garage princess"—he uses it on job sites. He just wants to know if he'll be able to keep driving one.
The open question is whether Tesla will treat those buyers right—honoring orders, stocking parts, and supporting the vehicles already on the road. That's where the accountability belongs. Not in WIRED's political wishcasting, but in whether the company delivers for the people who already delivered their cash.
