Tesla Cybertruck Recall Adds To Musk Woes

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Elon Musk is having a bad year. Last year ended so well as the price of shares in Tesla zoomed to an all time high, but it has been all downhill from there. Spurred by Musk’s Nazi salute antics at the recent inauguration of the most unqualified president in US history, then abetted by Musk’s chainsaw insanity at the latest CPAC assemblage of bigots, bros, and Brahmins, the stock has cratered, along with Tesla sales in most major markets. Add in Musk’s self-appointed role as the person in charge of dismantling the US government and it is no wonder public sentiment is turning against the Great and Powerful Musk, the world’s wealthiest carpetbagger.

Poor Elon. He doesn’t understand why people are angry with him, just because he wants to take a sledgehammer to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration. Yesterday he chose to go on the Sean Hannity show on Faux News to whine about how people must have some mental defect if they despise him so much. “Tesla is a peaceful company. We’ve never done anything awful,” he wailed to Hannity. “I’ve never done anything awful. I’ve only done productive things … there’s some kind of mental illness thing going on here, because this doesn’t make any sense.”

The great man went on to acknowledge that he has “upset” people with his work for DOGE and unsubstantiated allegations of improper conduct by government workers, though he made another unsubstantiated claim when he said: “It turns out when you take away the money people get fraudulently, they get very upset. They basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud, and they want to hurt Tesla because we are stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government. I guess they are bad people. Bad people do bad things.” And stupid people say stupid things, apparently.

Sharp-eyed readers will recall that Faux News is the same bottom feeding organization that defended itself in a libel suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems by claiming it was actually a comedy channel and that no one would ever take anything it said seriously. Jimmy Kimmel took time to explain things that are so opaque to Musk but blazingly clear to most people. “Well, let me see if I can explain it for you. When you pull out a chainsaw to celebrate firing thousands of people, they get mad!” Despite his self-confessed superior mental acuity, Musk is not smart enough to realize that when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

Another Cybertruck Recall

On March 20, 2025, things went from bad to worse for Tesla when it announced it is recalling virtually every Cybertruck ever made because a trim piece could fall off, endangering vehicles following behind. According to Newsweek, the Tesla Cybertruck recall relates to an exterior cant rail, a pressed steel sheet stuck to a steel panel with “structural adhesive” that is attached to the vehicle with fasteners. “If the cant rail stainless steel panel separates from the vehicle while in drive, it could create a road hazard for following motorists and increase their risk of injury or a collision,” the notice warned. Telsa said it is unaware of any related collisions, fatalities, or injuries. The recall notice read in part:

The Cybertruck is equipped with a cosmetic applique along the exterior of the vehicle, known as the cant rail, which is an assembly comprised of an electro-coated steel stamping joined to a stainless steel panel with structural adhesive. The cant rail assembly is affixed to the vehicle with fasteners. On affected vehicles, the cant rail stainless steel panel may delaminate at the adhesive joint, which may cause the panel to separate from the vehicle.

If the cant rail stainless steel panel separates from the vehicle while in drive, it could create a road hazard for following motorists and increase their risk of injury or a collision. A delaminated cant rail panel may create a detectable noise inside the cabin. Separately, the customer may observe the cant rail panel coming loose or separating from the vehicle.

Tesla says it will foot the bill for replacing the panels with ones that meet its durability requirements, but as of March 18 — the day the company submitted the recall report — the company had not yet corrected the issue in production. It said it expected to sort out the remedy by March 21, so owners should stay tuned for the latest information from the company about the recall.

Videos of Cybertruck owners ripping the cant rails off their vehicles with their hands have gone viral on antisocial media lately. If you don’t know what a cant rail is, you’re not alone. Here’s a screenshot from a YouTube video posted by Chuck Cook.

One unintended side effect of the recall is that it has revealed information about Cybertruck sales that Tesla has not shared with the public, because free speech for the free speech absolutist who controls Tesla only applies to others, not to him. NHTSA says the recall affects more than 46,000 vehicles. Since the dates of manufacture span virtually the entire production run so far, it appears that just over 46,000 of the stainless steel beasts have been sold so far. That’s a lot, but far fewer than many expected given the level of hype devoted to them by Musk and superfans. Certainly they have contributed very little to Tesla’s publicly announced expectations to double production other every year for the rest of this decade.

When the Cybertruck was revealed in 2019, Musk suggested there was a possibility the pickup truck with its polarizing design would not be a hit. “To be frank, there is always some chance that Cybertruck will flop, because it is so unlike anything else. I don’t care,” Musk said on the antisocial media channel he now owns. “I love it so much, even if others don’t.”

No one in Detroit is losing any sleep over the Cybertruck. According to Kelley Blue Book, traditional pickup truck sales are booming, even if Cybertruck sales are not. Ford’s F-Series was the top truck line for the 48th straight year in 2024, with sales climbing 21%. Tesla has yet to crack the 50,000 sales threshold despite the company lathering perks and promotions onto early iterations of the pickup that seem to have been stuck on lots for months. Musk said in June of last year that Tesla planned to stop making Foundation Series edition trucks “pretty soon.” Early this month, the company started offering free Supercharging and other perks to move those pickups out of inventory.

Musk seems to be more invested in metrics other than sales, Bloomberg says. “If something is cool, if it’s a great product, like, show it to a kid, OK?” Musk said during Tesla’s annual meeting last year. “The kids got — like — no filter. Like a five year old, six year old, something like that — or even a three year old. And say, which car do you like? Cybertruck. So it’s like, that’s how you know.” That’s an interesting marketing strategy, for sure, and one that offers some remarkable insights into how Musk thinks.