Early Tesla Cybertruck goes for $400,000 at auction

An early Tesla Cybertruck has sold for $400,000 at auction by the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles.

While we still don’t know when Tesla plans to start deliveries of the Cybertruck, the automaker’s highly anticipated first electric pickup truck, it’s expected to be soon.

That didn’t stop the Petersen Museum, a famous car museum in Los Angeles, from selling one at auction.

For their gala this year, the museum, which has a close relationship with Tesla, as it hosted the public debut of the Cybertruck in 2020 and has held a Tesla exposition since then, decided to raise funds by auctioning a “low-VIN Cybertruck.”

Despite the museum’s relationship with Tesla, it sounds like the automaker is not involved, and the institution plans to buy it from Tesla to give it to the winner of the auction without a specific timeline. It’s unclear how they will secure a “low-VIN” – though I suppose it’s relative what a “low-VIN” even is.

The gala hosted by Jay Leno cost $1,700 a ticket, and the museum was also accepting outside bids.

The results of the auction haven’t been officially announced, but people present this weekend are reporting that the Tesla Cybertruck went for $400,000:

That’s about five times what the higher-end version of the electric truck is expected to start at.

The funds are expected to go to the museum, which operates as a non-profit.

Electrek’s Take

Rich people are spending their money in weird ways. It’s not clear at all here that they have secured an early Cybertruck from Tesla.

They might simply have a Cybertruck reservation that they believe to be an early one, but historically Tesla hasn’t been closely following the order of reservations when delivering new vehicles.

Now I know that Tesla has a relationship with the museum, so it’s possible that they have a deal with them we don’t know about, and hope so for whoever paid $400,000 for a truck worth probably about $80,000.

But even if they do secure a very “low VIN,” I don’t think it’s worth anywhere near that unless you sell it to another OEM looking to reverse-engineer it.