- Video of a Tesla Cybertruck covered in bullet marks spread on X after a negative Q3 earnings call.
- Elon Musk claimed testers shot at the vehicle "Al Capone style" to ensure it was bulletproof.
Tesla's long-awaited Cybertruck is bulletproof — if you take Elon Musk's word for it.
In a video clip posted Friday by the official auto club Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley on X, formerly Twitter, a pre-release Cybertruck can be seen driving along a highway, studded with what appear to be bullet indentations along the left side of the massive silver vehicle.
Within 10 minutes of the clip being posted, and following an immediate outpouring of fan speculation about bulletproof testing, the Tesla CEO was quick to chime in and explain to users of the social media platform what they were looking at.
"We emptied the entire drum magazine of a Tommy gun into the driver door Al Capone style," Musk wrote in response to YouTuber Farzad Mesbahi re-posting the clip. "No bullets penetrated into the passenger compartment."
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2023
While some fans seized upon the clip as an "unbelievably awesome" example of the automaker's innovation, others weren't convinced of either the safety of the car or the authenticity of Musk's claims about the clip — which went viral just a day after a gloomy Q3 earnings call in which Musk said the company "dug our own grave" with the Cybertruck.
"Video or it never happened," one user wrote in response to Musk claiming testers had fired a Tommy gun, a type of submachine gun that typically uses a .45 bullet, upon the Cybertruck.
Others quickly noted that the car's windows were conspicuously lacking any testing damage and re-circulated video from the 2019 launch of the Cybertruck, in which the window's glass unexpectedly shattered in the middle of a demonstration meant to highlight its durability.
Musk claimed at the time that the Cybertruck's window only shattered after a steel ball was thrown at it because the door of the prototype had been struck by a sledgehammer earlier in the demonstration, which he said "cracked base of glass."
"Should have done steel ball on window, *then* sledgehammer the door," Musk wrote on X in 2019 of the Cybertruck window failing. "Next time."
Representatives for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider. The first Cybertrucks are set to be delivered to their owners next month.