Cybertruck Too Safe To Ignore: Even Musk's Biggest Critics Are Buying One

When a prominent Elon Musk critic publicly announces he bought a Cybertruck, you pay attention. That is exactly what happened on May 6, 2026, when Brian Krassenstein, one of the more vocal Musk antagonists on social media, posted that he had purchased the angular stainless steel truck his crowd loves to hate.

Krassenstein has spent years clashing with Musk on everything from content moderation and platform politics to public health. He is not a casual critic. He is the kind of person whose followers would expect a Cybertruck to be the last vehicle on his shopping list. So when he posted about the purchase on X, the response was immediate and predictable: accusations of hypocrisy, jokes about selling out, and a pile-on from people who treat the truck as a political totem rather than a vehicle.

None of that changed what he wrote. His reason had nothing to do with a change of heart about Musk or Tesla’s politics. He bought it because it is the safest pickup truck on the market, and he has a young family to protect. That is a harder argument to shout down than aesthetics or allegiances, and it points to something the polarized discourse around the Cybertruck keeps trying to bury: the engineering is exceptional, and at some point, the data wins.

Safety Over Politics

Krassenstein was upfront about the backlash he expected: “I might get hate for this too, but I bought a Cybertruck.” He cited his young family, the environmental benefit of ditching a combustion engine, an existing Tesla home charger, and the vehicle’s documented safety record as his deciding factors. He was right about the backlash. Critics piled on about aesthetics and perceived hypocrisy. What they could not do was argue with the data on which he based his decision.

That data is pretty straightforward. The 2025 Cybertruck earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Top Safety Pick+ designation, the highest honor the IIHS awards. More importantly, it was the only pickup truck in the entire U.S. market to earn it. The IIHS requires “Good” ratings across the small overlap front, updated side, and updated moderate overlap front crash tests, plus acceptable-or-better headlight ratings on all trims. Cybertruck hit “Good” across every crashworthiness category. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration then awarded a perfect 5-star overall rating, covering the frontal, side, and rollover categories. No other pickup on sale today holds both distinctions simultaneously.

Why the Numbers Actually Matter

Lab ratings are one thing. Real-world resilience is another, and the Cybertruck keeps delivering on both fronts. The stainless steel exoskeleton and ultra-rigid structure have been documented absorbing impacts that would crumple a traditional body-on-frame truck. In a widely circulated incident, a Cybertruck owner reported surviving a 70-mph interstate sideswipe while barely feeling the impact, with the other vehicle taking the visible damage.

Tesla’s structural approach prioritizes a fortified passenger cell rather than relying entirely on traditional crumple zones. That design philosophy means the space around the occupants is treated as a protected vault, not an afterthought. For families with young kids in the back seat, that distinction is not abstract. It is the entire point.

The reality that Krassenstein’s purchase reveals is inconvenient for anyone trying to make the Cybertruck purely a political symbol: when objective safety data decisively point to one truck, the argument collapses. Parents protecting their families are not going to leave performance on the table because of online tribalism.

Built to This Standard, the Wheels Should Match

If there is one thing the Cybertruck makes obvious, it is that half-measures do not belong anywhere near it. Tesla engineered this truck for people who want the most capable, most protected machine on the road. That philosophy extends to every component, including what sits between the stainless body and the pavement.

The UP Forged UP-RW Road Warrior HD wheels from Unplugged Performance are among the few aftermarket options built to keep pace with the Cybertruck’s construction standards. The UP-RW carries a 3,197-lb load rating per wheel, which is the kind of number that makes sense for a truck with this much mass and performance. The aero-optimized forged design is built for direct factory tire compatibility, so you won’t have to wrestle with fitment compromises. A replaceable curb-guard ring handles the real-world abuse that a truck this capable will inevitably encounter. These are now available in 20-inch fitment at CybertruckWheels.com, starting at $798.75 per wheel.

The UP-RW Road Warrior is not a dress-up part. It is an engineering-first upgrade that respects the same principles Tesla applied to the truck itself: build it overspec, build it to last, and do not cut corners on what matters.

When the Critics Buy In, the Argument Is Over

Krassenstein buying a Cybertruck is a signal worth reading carefully. This is not a fan turning into a bigger fan. This is someone who has spent years criticizing the company’s founder making a pragmatic family decision based on crash test data and real-world performance. The Cybertruck earned that purchase on merit alone, and that is a harder thing to dismiss than any political argument.

For anyone sitting on the fence about the cost, the entry point has also come down meaningfully. Tesla’s All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck is available for $79,990, and that price includes adaptive air suspension, leather seats, a 15-speaker audio system, a rear touchscreen, and the full suite of premium features the short-lived RWD trim stripped out. For a truck with this safety pedigree and this level of capability, that figure is genuinely competitive with what Ford, Ram, and GM are charging for top-spec combustion trucks that cannot match it in crash tests.

For Cybertruck owners and prospective buyers, the safety case is settled. The truck is objectively the best-protected pickup available, with backing from IIHS and NHTSA to prove it. The question now is whether the rest of the build reflects the same standard, including the wheels.

At CybertruckWheels.com, we stock a full range to fit wherever you take the truck. On the accessible end, our entry-level forged options deliver proper fitment and clean aesthetics without the flagship price tag. On the performance side, our off-road lineup, including beadlock-capable designs built for serious terrain, is engineered to handle the kind of abuse the Cybertruck’s suspension and powertrain can actually deliver. Whether you are keeping it street-focused or pushing the truck further into the dirt, there is a wheel here built for it.

None of this happens without Elon Musk deciding to build something genuinely different. The Cybertruck is the product of a team that refused to design around compromises, and Musk deserves credit for pushing a truck that the industry said could not work into the safest pickup on the market. Tesla’s engineering choices, from the stainless exoskeleton to the fortified passenger cell to the active safety systems that earned perfect scores from the IIHS and NHTSA, reflect what happens when a company builds from first principles rather than convention. The critics bought one. That says everything.