Elon Musk now says Tesla can't build the Cybertruck and the Cybercab at the same time because there are only so many "smart, dedicated people" to go around, and half the executives he showed off in 2023 as proof of Tesla's "bench strength" have since left the company, Electrek reported.
On Friday, Musk said Tesla would wind down Cybertruck production at Giga Texas around the middle of next year "to make room for increased Cybercab production." He later extended that timeline through the end of summer 2027, as previously reported. A day after the mid-2027 remark, replying to a user on X, Musk gave a different reason: "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." He added that if Tesla has to "maintain a complex production line, supply chain and allocate engineering for Cybertruck, we can't use those people" for scaling Cybercab, Electrek reported. By the following morning, he had also cited the "opportunity cost of the complexity of Cybertruck."
The Cybertruck is the second consumer program Tesla has moved to wind down this year. In January, Musk announced the end of the Model S and Model X on Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call and summed up the reason in one word: "Autonomy." The Fremont line is being converted to build Optimus robots, and by April only inventory was left, Electrek reported.
At Tesla's Investor Day at Giga Texas on March 1, 2023, Musk mostly stayed out of the spotlight while more than a dozen executives presented. "We've obviously got significant bench strength here," he said at the time. Of the 14 executives named as presenters that day, Electrek reported that seven have since left: Zach Kirkhorn, the chief financial officer, in August 2023; Colin Campbell, vice president of powertrain engineering, in 2024, now chief technology officer at Redwood Materials; Drew Baglino, senior vice president of powertrain and energy engineering, in April 2024 after 18 years; Rebecca Tinucci, head of Supercharging, who was fired in April 2024 along with most of her team; David Lau, vice president of software engineering, in April 2025 after 12 years; Pete Bannon, vice president of hardware engineering, in August 2025 as Tesla shut down its Dojo supercomputer; and Mike Snyder, vice president of energy and charging, who stepped down last month, according to the Wall Street Journal. Tesla has not confirmed Snyder's departure, Electrek noted. Martin Viecha, who ran investor relations through that event, left in April 2024 as well.
Seven of those presenters are still at Tesla, according to their LinkedIn profiles, Electrek reported: Tom Zhu, Lars Moravy, Franz von Holzhausen, Ashok Elluswamy, Karn Budhiraj, Laurie Shelby and Brandon Ehrhart.
Program-level departures have continued. In November 2025, Tesla lost Cybertruck program head Siddhant Awasthi and Model Y program manager Emmanuel Lamacchia within a day of each other. On the Cybercab side, Electrek reported that vehicle program manager Victor Nechita quit in February 2026, days after the first production unit came off the line; Mark Lupkey, who ran Cybercab assembly and end-of-line at Giga Texas, left in March; Michael So, head of Cybercab new product introduction and Giga Texas employee number one, left in April; and Jody Kerns, senior manager of Cybercab general assembly, left in October to run R2 general assembly at Rivian. Those are personnel reports, not a claim that Cybercab production has stopped. Musk's own explanation is that the constraint is people, not factory floor space.