Did Tesla remotely deactivate rapper Big Huey's Cybertruck in August 2025? No, that's not true: The company denies it. The screen message, reading "return to dealer", is clear evidence of a hoax, since Teslas are not sold through dealerships. The "cease and desist letter" accompanying the purported deactivation showed an incorrect current title for Tesla's legal counsel.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on August 11, 2025. It opened:
Tesla remotely deactivated the vehicle of a rapper after he was singing about the Cybertruck, leaving him stranded on the road, before sending him a cease and desist letter...
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: Screenshot of a post by the cryptonator1337 account on X.com)
The company, however, denied that it deactivated the vehicle. On August 11, 2025, the Tesla account on X wrote (archived here):
This is fake - that's not our screen.
Tesla does NOT disable vehicles remotely.
One sign that the video did not show an authentic warning was the direction to "return to dealer" that was purported to have appeared on the vehicle's screen. Unlike other car brands, Tesla doesn't operate under the dealership model and sells its cars directly to consumers through a series of stores (archived here) and "galleries", with associates at the latter being legally prohibited from discussing in-person sales in some states like Texas (archived here).
The video was originally posted on August 10, 2025 (archived here and here), on Instagram by Big Huey. In it, the rapper's car appeared to have stopped in the middle of the highway, showing the warning. Later that day, Big Huey uploaded a video (archived here and here) of the "cease and desist letter" dated August 1, 2025. It discussed the use of Tesla products in music videos, among other things.
That letter listed the current title of the attorney (archived here) who claimed to have signed it as "Sr. Director and Deputy General Counsel," while, as of this writing, Dinna Eskin's LinkedIn profile (archived here and here) described her as "VP, Legal".
On July 19, 2025, the rapper published a new music video titled "Cybertruck" (archived here) on YouTube.
