Elon Musk says Tesla must refund Cybertruck deposits to ‘a lot of people’; he touted 250K reservations back in 2019

“We will try to make as many as possible before shutting down the line in about 8 months, but will have to return deposits for a lot of people,” he wrote in the post, which came two days after he broke the hearts of Cybertruck fans with the initial news of its end to make way for fabrication of the flashy new autonomous Cybercab.

How much were the deposits and how much will Tesla have to pay out?

The brand’s website currently states that reservation “pre-order payments” are fully refundable up until the car’s shipping date.

But there has been some confusion between the initial reservation fee and the order fee that a client pays once they reach the front of the reservation waitlist and are able to customize their vehicle.

Reservations opened up when the truck was first unveiled in 2019 for a mere $100 USD, a tiny fraction of the $60,990 to $120,000 price tag of the angular, head-turning set of wheels.

This price was briefly bumped to $250 when the first of them began hitting the roads at the end of 2023. Then in August 2024, the reservation system was done away with entirely, and direct orders were opened up to the general public without any waiting period. The fee to configure and lock in a Cybertruck, the order fee, was also set at $250, and was non-refundable at the time.

Of course, now that Tesla is the one cancelling orders, these funds will be returned to would-be Cybertruck owners.

According to the latest sales figures via Bloomberg, a total of 7,133 of the machines were purchased in the U.S. during the first five months of this year, compared to the 250,000 Musk touted in 2019. But, the model’s discontinuation has prompted a reported surge in interest.