When Tesla launched the Cybertruck in 2023, it was the product of four years of hype. The boxy electric pickup was the company’s first new model since 2020. Kim Kardashian, Pharrell Williams, and Justin Bieber were spotted riding around in it. With a million people on the truck’s reservation list and a $120,000 price tag, it quickly became a status symbol.
Less than two years later, the waitlist has disappeared. Trucks are piling up in sales lots. Fewer than 50,000 vehicles have been delivered. Some owners have become political targets thanks to CEO Elon Musk’s association with President Donald Trump.
Enter a quiet rebrand.
Over the past few months, Tesla has moved to position the Cybertruck as a working man’s vehicle — less DeLorean, more Ford F-150. The company updated its website, ditching an other-worldly aesthetic for images that feature the truck hauling equipment and an Airstream trailer. And sales workers at the company told Business Insider it’s become increasingly difficult to move the truck off sales lots. The vehicle, they said, needs to appeal to the traditional truck buyer.
“Pitching it to truck people is more about the functionality,” said one salesperson who works in the South. “They want to know how much it can tow, how much can fit in the truck bed.”
As the company prepares to deliver first quarter earnings, it faces sluggish delivery numbers, a brand crisis, and a stock price down over 43% year to date — and is looking for a boost.
“They initially pushed too hard into the out-of-this-world aesthetic,” Ivan Drury, the director of insight for the automotive research firm Edmunds, told Business Insider. “That only appeals to the outskirts of the market. Now they need to take a more traditional route.”
Taking on the traditional truck market
As recently as April 9, Tesla’s website included renderings of the truck in a Mars-like atmosphere and ad copy that touted it was “built for any planet” with a “cabin as quiet as outer space.” (The brand famously shies away from traditional advertising and relies on Musk, the website, its reputation, and its X presence to sell vehicles.)
Early on, Ford CEO Jim Farley dismissed the Cybertruck as only for “Silicon Valley people” and “like a cool high-end product parked in front of a hotel.”
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“I don’t make trucks like that,” Farley said shortly before the Cybertruck’s release. “I make trucks for real people who do real work, and that’s a different kind of truck.”
In mid-April, Tesla redesigned its product page for the first time since the truck’s release. Gone are the futuristic aesthetics and allusions to Mars; now the vehicle is fit for a construction worker or a family outing.
It’s strikingly similar to advertisements for the 2024 model of Ford’s F-150, the best-selling pickup in the US for the past 40 years.
Tesla and Ford
The lead image for both truck’s webpages featured Airstream trailers, and both included images of truck beds filled with wire.
Tesla and Ford did not respond to a request for comment.
The cheaper, scaled-down version of the Tesla truck, which launched in April, is also similar in price, range, and towing capacity to Ford’s electric F-150.
Two Tesla sales workers told Business Insider that they’ve seen a push to market the vehicle more toward the typical truck buyer since late last year. The sales worker who works in a Southern state said the truck’s flashy exterior has made it difficult to find people willing to buy it.
“Most of the test drivers aren’t real truck buyers,” they said. “It’s more of a novelty thing.”
Ford and Tesla
Despite the truck’s “bulletproof” exterior, Tesla struggled to market it as worksite-friendly and durable early on. Within weeks of its release, owners and critics took to social media to post Cybertruck fails, including footage of the truck getting stuck in snow or struggling to drive up a dirt hill. The phenomenon even spawned a popular Reddit channel with more than 300,000 members called “Cyberstuck.” The pickup has also had eight recalls since its release.
Even though a typical truck owner may not work on a farm or a construction site, there’s value in selling that image. Drury sees the new marketing materials as a step in the right direction.
“They need to advertise durability. It needs to be used and abused, and all of the capabilities that make it a work truck need to be on full display,” Drury said. “People might not use it for those capabilities, but it’s about selling an image or lifestyle.”
Musk’s pivot
Tesla’s Cybertruck revamp has coincided with Musk’s rightward political shift.
Traditionally, Teslas have appealed to left-leaning buyers; many of the company’s sales centers are located in blue states and urban areas, and Democrats have been more likely to purchase an EV.
But as Musk has become increasingly tied to President Donald Trump and DOGE, some of those people have started to turn on Tesla, staging protests outside sales centers. Other people have vandalized Cybertrucks and targeted their owners.
Tesla’s sales numbers have followed suit, particularly for the Cybertruck. The company sold 6,406 Cybertrucks during the first three months of 2025, about half the number it sold the previous quarter, according to an estimate from Cox Automotive.
Along with pitches from Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the “working man” marketing may well appeal to a different kind of customer. (Tapping into a broader cultural push toward traditional masculinity, which Musk has championed, also doesn’t hurt.)
At least one analyst sees a potential red-state boon. “Tesla could actually net meaningful sales gains over time” in red counties, Itay Michaeli, a TD Cowen analyst, wrote in March.
Politics aside, the Auto Trader editor Brian Moody told Business Insider that he thinks the Cybertruck marketing strategy has been a smart move for the brand and represents a natural progression.
“Right out of the gate, they were appealing to the Tesla fans, but most of those people have probably already bought the car, and now they have to appeal to the regular people,” Moody said. “Now they need to focus on the practicality.”
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