FREE PARKING

Satellite image of second Giga Texas parking lot, March 21, 2025 (Sherwood News, SkyFi)

Look at all the Cybertrucks stashed outside Tesla’s factory in Texas

We count more than 500, which is roughly 1% of the entire number of Cybertrucks owned in the US. That’s a lot of stainless steel that can’t survive a car wash.

4/17/25 11:17AM

Cybertrucks represented 5% of all US Tesla sales last quarter, but they make up a huge portion of the inventory piled up outside Giga Texas, the factory where they’re produced. Our analysis of satellite imagery of the production facility suggests that about half the vehicles in the main production lots appear to be Cybertrucks.

That’s likely because the stainless steel trucks, despite recently becoming less expensive, have proven especially difficult to sell as CEO Elon Musk has taken on a more controversial role in the US government and the brand has become increasingly unpopular. The company is sitting on about $200 million worth of Cybertruck inventory, Electrek reported earlier this month.

By our count, there are more than 500 Cybertrucks — which amounts to more than 1% of the number of Cybertrucks owned in the US — being stored on lots at Giga Texas. Here’s a view of the the main parking lot there, where new vehicles reside before they’re shipped off to customers:

Tesla Giga Texas lot March 21 2025 — Satellite image of second Giga Texas parking lot, March 21, 2025 (Sherwood News, SkyFi)

Here’s a second major inventory lot, which appears to be mostly Cybertucks.

Since the Cybertrucks began coming off the line just over a year ago, Tesla has sold fewer than 50,000 of the vehicles in the US — something we know from government data after the vehicle’s eighth recall last month. The 6,406 the company sold in Q1 is also about half of what it sold a quarter earlier, according to data from Cox Automotive, when the truck was less of a political lightning rod. By any accounting, the Cybertruck’s numbers are far fewer than the 1.5 million preorders it originally had.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Today, Business Insider reported that Tesla is reducing Cybertruck production and reallocating employees to work on the much better-selling Model Y lines instead, though it should be noted that Tesla’s total sales are down significantly.

As a result of the excess of Cybertrucks already produced, they’re starting to pop up in parking lots around the country as well. Tesla also seems to be using these idle Cybertrucks to tow around Model Ys as a form of advertising.

Let us know if you see any more Cybertrucks hiding in plain sight.

Jon Keegan5h

FT: Meta considering “tens of billions” in new capital to fund AI

Just days after Google announced a monster $85 billion upsized equity raise, the extremely profitable Meta is seeking to sell “tens of billions of dollars” in stock, according to a new report from the Financial Times.

Meta is planning on spending between $125 billion and $145 billion on AI capital expenditure this year alone.

Shares dropped more than 5% on the news.

Meta weighs big equity raising after blockbuster Google deal

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Meta is supercharging its subscription businesses

The free-app giant never really cared about recurring revenue. Now, it’s launching paid plans for all sorts of stuff.

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FT: Anthropic staff helping the NSA use Mythos for offensive cyberattacks

Anthropic’s Mythos AI model was deemed too dangerous to release to the public, with the company citing its ability to orchestrate novel cyberattacks.

And that’s just what the National Security Agency is doing, with the help of Anthropic staff embedded at the agency, according to a report from the Financial Times.

Only a small number of companies and US allies have been given access to the advanced model, which means America’s adversaries have not had the chance to shore up their defenses against the AI model’s new offensive capabilities.

The arrangement is especially unusual as the Pentagon has deemed Anthropic’s AI a national security supply chain risk — effectively blacklisting it for defense work — in response to the company’s refusal to allow its technology to be used for any legal application, which could include autonomous killing or mass surveillance. Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the determination.

US National Security Agency using Anthropic’s Mythos for cyber attacks

Rani Molla11h

Longtime Tesla bear JPMorgan upgraded Tesla and raised its price target to $475 from $145

For more than a decade, JPMorgan was Wall Street’s most stubborn Tesla skeptic, anchored by auto analyst Ryan Brinkman’s strict focus on traditional car fundamentals and near-term delivery numbers.

But JPM recently handed coverage of the stock to a new analyst, Rajat Gupta, who is throwing that playbook out the window. In a note Friday, the firm upgraded Tesla to “neutral” from “underweight” and raised its price target 228% to $475 from $145. (The analyst consensus on FactSet is $403.) Instead of focusing on the company’s struggling vehicle business, the new analyst is orienting himself more toward Tesla’s idea of the future, now modeling Tesla’s physical AI and robotaxi fleets all the way out to the year 2040.

Here are the main reasons for the capitulation:

Looking past the car lot: Gupta argues that Tesla “is at the forefront of physical AI, entering uncharted TAMs” and therefore “deserves the benefit of the doubt to be valued on LT earnings potential” rather than near-term speed bumps.
Unmatched vertical integration: Tesla’s control over everything from battery cells to custom silicon gives it a massive moat. JPM notes this starting point advantage is “unmatched at an industrial level scale” and “still somewhat under-appreciated and misunderstood.”
The AWS flywheel effect: Deploying Optimus robots inside its own factories “should not only lower COGS for the base automotive business, but more importantly, help validate the product at an industrial scale.” Gupta called it “a classic flywheel effect, somewhat analogous to AWS and Kiva at AMZN.”

For Tesla bulls who have argued for years that this is an AI company and not a carmaker, JPM’s sudden $3.9 trillion valuation model is the ultimate validation.

Anthropic ponders self-improving AI

Anthropic says Claude already writes 80% of its code. A new post asks what happens when the models can improve themselves — and whether anyone could stop them.

Jon Keegan11h