Elon Musk’s Cybertruck Gaffe Cost Him A Reported $768 Million
Elon Musk’s broken car window turned out to be very costly.
The Tesla chief took a major hit this week at a demonstration of the company’s new Cybertruck, which the billionaire had billed as indestructible. After describing how the truck’s windows were bullet-proof, a designer tossed some metal balls at the windows, damaging what was supposed to be the impenetrable glass.
“Oh my f**king God,” an exasperated Musk said after the metal ball left a crater in the side of the truck and cracked the armored glass. A second toss from the designer left more damage, and the demonstration came to a close with many questioning whether the Cybertruck could really hold up the claims of the Tesla CEO.
As the New York Post reported, the incident was an embarrassment for Tesla and sent the company’s stock falling 6 percent in the hours that followed. The drop in the stock market also shaved $768 million off Musk’s net worth, which is tied heavily into the company’s stock. Musk has famously refused to take a salary for his work at Tesla, instead owning close to 20 percent of the company’s stock. That leaves his net worth especially vulnerable to dips in the market, like the one created by the failed demonstration this week.
As The Inquisitr noted, there has been plenty of criticism of the truck even without the demonstration mishap. Many people have critiqued its boxy design, drawing unfavorable comparisons to the Pontiac Aztek and DeLorean. Others thought it looked like a design from an old racing video game.
Bruh, the Tesla Cybertruck looks like a low-poly DeLorean lmao pic.twitter.com/H5CjGk2fZW
— goog (@cringetweet2) November 22, 2019
The incident may not have hurt Cybertruck’s prospects too much, the New York Post noted. Musk said on Saturday that there were already orders for 146,000 of the futuristic vehicle, which retails for $40,000. In doing so, Musk appeared to hint that the attention from the broken glass demonstration may have actually helped exposure for the truck, leading to more sales and leading many to suggest it was a case of the old theory that “no press is bad press.”
When someone replied to his statement on Twitter about the Cybertruck sales by saying that “Memes are the best form of free advertisement,” Musk seemed to agree.
“Haha v true,” he wrote.
And Musk himself will likely be all right, even with the big stock market drop and nearly $1 billion shaved off his net worth. The tech mogul still has a total net worth of $23.6 billion in the latest estimate from Forbes.
