Musk Says Tesla Can Only Build One New Car at a Time — and Cybercab Won the Talent

Elon Musk has given the clearest explanation yet of why Tesla is winding down the Cybertruck: the company, he says, has a very limited number of smart, dedicated people, and those people can only do so many things. In a post on X, Musk said that maintaining the Cybertruck production line, supply chain and engineering resources prevents Tesla from using the same people to scale Cybercab, its two-seat robotaxi.

The exact wording, as reported, was: “The biggest thing most people fail to understand is that there are a very limited number of smart, dedicated people! They can only do so many things.” Musk did not say Tesla cannot build more than one car at a time in general — the limit he described applies specifically to the Cybertruck and Cybercab, and to the staff, supply chain and engineering effort each one demands.

The context is a truck that never met its own targets. Cybertruck sales sagged 28% this year through September, to about 11,600 trucks, according to an estimate from research firm Motor Intelligence — far off the 250,000-truck annual level Musk once predicted. Tesla has said it will ramp up Cybertruck production at its Austin, Texas, factory to meet an order backlog before dismantling the assembly line around June or July 2027, and that it will have to refund deposits for many reservation holders.

The post also lands amid reported turnover in Tesla’s vehicle programs: the head of the Cybertruck program, Siddhant Awasthi, and Model Y program manager Emmanuel Lamacchia both left in November 2025, according to the reporting. Whether the talent constraint is the whole story or a framing of a sales problem, the direction is now unambiguous — Tesla is betting its Texas factory on robotaxis, not trucks.