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Tesla’s first pickup truck won’t be out of place in ‘Blade Runner,’ says Elon Musk
Not one to disappoint, Elon Musk dropped a number of interesting new tidbits of information about Tesla’s upcoming projects in his recent interview at the Recode Decode podcast, hosted by veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher. Over the 80-minute session, Swisher and Musk discussed several topics, from SpaceX and Tesla to The Boring Company and AI.
In one particularly notable segment of the podcast, Elon Musk discussed the Tesla pickup truck at length, teasing some of its design elements and how the vehicle might probably need a more conventional follow-up. While discussing Tesla’s future cars, Musk noted that he is most excited about the pickup truck, which he fondly describes as a “super-futuristic” vehicle that would not look out of place in the Blade Runner franchise. Musk admitted that while he doesn’t really know if Tesla’s pickup truck would be successful, the primary purpose behind the creation of the vehicle is to get fewer fossil fuel-powered pickups on the road.
“I can’t talk about the details, but it’s gonna be like a really futuristic like cyberpunk, Blade Runner pickup truck. You know, I actually don’t know if a lot of people will buy this pickup truck or not, but I don’t care. I mean I do care, eventually, you know. Like sure, I care. We wanna get gasoline, diesel pickup trucks off the road,” Musk said.
Musk has stated that he is already iterating designs for the pickup truck with Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen. In the off chance that the first Tesla pickup truck does not prove successful, though, Musk noted that the company would likely make something far more conventional. As for the first truck, Musk hopes the vehicle would be something that people would want to buy, even if they are not into pickup trucks.
“I’m personally super-excited by this pickup truck. It’s something I’ve been wanting to make for a long time. And I’ve been iterating sort of designs with Franz. It’s like I really wanted something that’s like super-futuristic cyberpunk. If there’s only a small number of people that like that truck, I guess we’ll make a more conventional truck in the future. But it’s the thing that I am personally most fired up about. It’s gonna have a lot of titanium. I think this is the kinda thing the consumer would want to buy, even if they don’t normally buy a pickup truck.”
“So, anyway, that’s personally I’m most excited about. But like I said, it could be just like, okay, I weirdly like it and other people don’t. That’s possible. But we’re gonna make it anyway, and then we will just have a niche audience, I don’t know. But if it does, then we’ll make a more conventional pickup truck.”
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- Source: Truck Trend via Kris Horton (www.carsbykris.com),
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- Source: Truck Trend via Kris Horton (www.carsbykris.com), https://www.facebook.com/CarsByKris/?fref=ts
A more conventional take on the Tesla Pickup Truck. [Credit: Kris Horton/Facebook]
Musk’s recent updates about the Tesla pickup truck are in line with a Twitter brainstorming session he conducted earlier this year. During that time, Musk asked members of the social media platform which features would be great for the upcoming vehicle. Musk responded positively to several suggestions, and by the end of his Twitter session, he had already noted that the pickup truck would have four-wheel steering, the capability to parallel park itself, seating for six people, a 240-volt connection for power tools, and a maximum towing capacity of 300,000 pounds.
Listening to Elon Musk talk about the Tesla pickup truck, it is evident that the CEO is extremely excited about the vehicle. Musk would likely need to exercise some caution with the truck, though, to avoid stuffing the vehicle with too much tech. Tesla had learned this the hard way with the Model X, a car whose production challenges were the result of what Musk later admitted was a classic case of hubris.
Considering that the Ford F-150 is America’s best-selling vehicle, the Tesla pickup truck could be the company’s best-selling product. With this in mind, Tesla has to find a balance between features and ease of production to ensure that it could meet the demand for its cyberpunk, Blade Runner type truck.
Listen to Elon Musk and Kara Swisher’s conversation in the Recode Decode podcast below.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
