Tesla Cybertruck rumor mill misfires, exasperates even Elon Musk
Steel Dynamics, a Fort Wayne, Indiana-based steel producer, has gotten all sorts of attention lately from Tesla fans and followers. This has been entirely unfounded, and is one of several examples of the narrative around the Elon Musk-led company getting ahead of reality recently. First, a bit of background about Steel Dynamics, also known as SDI. The company is building a new plant in Sinton, Texas, near the Gulf Coast. The facility is designed to produce 3 million tons of steel annually for construction, automotive, appliance and other manufacturing markets.
Steel Dynamics has billed its mill as capable of providing higher-strength, tougher grades of steel for the auto industry. “These ultra-high-strength steel products are not currently readily available from other domestic steel producers,” the company said in its most recent annual report.
The facility’s relatively close proximity to the factory Tesla is building in Austin, Texas, has fueled speculation and dubiously sourced stories that SDI is going to supply steel for the upcoming Tesla Cybertruck.
The rumors aren’t true. “I can absolutely confirm we are NOT currently an approved supplier to that facility or that platform,” Barry Schneider, an SDI senior vice president, wrote to me last month in an email. “We will aspire to work towards becoming an approved supplier to Tesla for the products that we are capable of producing.”
In recent days, Teslarati, which describes itself as the leading source for Tesla news, rumors and reviews, once again ran a story that linked SDI to the Cybertruck. I checked in with Schneider to see if anything had changed and was assured nothing had. Teslarati has appended a correction to the top of its latest post, although the headline and
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