Elon Musk has stirred up Twitter once again by suggesting that his much-hyped Cybertruck will be “waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat.” Given Musk's notorious online persona, it’s impossible to tell whether this is a serious statement or just something he’s spitballing.
Nevertheless, the tweet caused a cascade of reactions (mainly negative).
"Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes and even seas that aren’t too choppy," Musk tweeted on Thursday.
"Needs [to] be able to get from Starbase to South Padre Island, which requires crossing the channel," he added. Or you could just take a private jet?
Musk first revealed the Tesla Cybertruck back in 2019, a clunky metal pickup powered by an electric battery. With its “futuristic” angular design, the unusual-looking vehicle has attracted a huge amount of attention online, but years later there's still no idea of when the vehicle will actually hit the road.
You may also remember its infamous unveiling when Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, chucked a steel ball at the window to prove its “bulletproof” credentials. Unfortunately, it was not bulletproof.
“Oh my f**king god,” Musk laughed. “Maybe that was a little hard!”
Given Cybertruck's unpredictable track record, Musk’s claim about Cybertruck's seafaring abilities provoked some skeptical eyebrows.
Today is also Tesla's Artificial Intelligence (AI) day, where it is rumored Musk will unveil a prototype of the new robot Optimus (yes, it is named for Optimus Prime from Transformers). Musk claims that the robots will be "general purpose", or able to perform a multitude of tasks given to them, with a goal of setting thousands of the robots to work in Tesla factories in the near future.
