A Utah YouTuber has expressed surprise at how little his gold-plated Tesla Cybertruck sold for when he put it up for auction. YouTube legend and destroyer of phones, JerryRigEverything customized his Tesla Cybertruck Foundation Series with real 24-karat gold, all for an experiment.
The idea was to customize it with gold, albeit at his own considerable expense, and then give the car away as part of a sweepstakes. That didn’t quite go to plan, as the sweepstakes winner chose cash instead of the Cybertruck, so Jerry had to auction the truck.
As a Foundation Series truck and heavily customized with real gold on the exterior, Jerry expected it to sell for good money. Jerry had worked with Ridge, who owned the truck, in 2024 in order to cover it with 24-karat gold. This involved chemically preparing the truck’s body before applying gold electrochemically.
The result was impressive. The truck really did pop with its new gold exterior, and even though it cost Jerry a lot of money, he was still happy with the decision to modify the EV. But he had still hoped to make more money on it when it was sold at auction via Cars & Bids in December 2024.
How Much Did Gold-Plating the Tesla Cybertruck Cost?
At the end of the process, Jerry said that the Cybertruck was 99.7 percent gold-hardened with a small amount of cobalt. A protective film was then applied to the finished product to protect the gold from debris and chipping. The YouTuber said it cost him $60,000 to get the EV gold-plated, on top of the $99,000 that it would have cost to buy this particular Tesla Cybertruck in the first place.
The sweepstakes offered three prizes. The Tesla, a Hennessey VelociRaptor worth around $140,000, or $100,000 in cash. In the end, the winner took the cash prize, so Jerry had to auction his truck off to get some money back. Hoping to make good money on it, Jerry sent the truck to Doug DeMuro’s Cars & Bids to auction off and decided to list it without a reserve price.
Clearly, the YouTuber felt he’d make some decent money on his investment. With the truck only doing 6,900 miles from new, it was pretty much factory fresh, and the gold, quite literally, added another layer to the EV’s appeal. Over the course of the auction, the truck was viewed 152,000 times and received 22 bids. But in the end, Jerry sold it for only $102,000, which is far below the roughly $160,000 he’d have spent on it, including the purchase price and the cost of adding gold.
Did the YouTuber Regret the Gold-Plating?
It didn’t look like Jerry had regretted his decision too much. In the end, much of this is done in the name of content, and the listing for the truck also stated it was a charity auction. Jerry decided that the proceeds from the sale would go to the Not A Wheelchair Foundation, and that included the buyer’s fee as well. So, no matter what it sold for, the proceeds went to a very worthy cause.
A few extras were included in the sale too. The Cybertruck was sold with an iPhone, which acted as the digital master key. Two key cards for the truck were also thrown in, and Jerry also included all-weather floor mats with the truck. It even included autographs in the front trunk and some Ridge and 24K Gold decals on the bodywork.
Yes, it didn’t quite sell for what Jerry or Ridge had hoped for. But when the money goes to charity, that doesn’t really matter.