• Tesla in Taiwan announced a special partnership with Costco yesterday.
  • Less than 24 hours later, Elon Musk says he’s axed the program because it wasn’t approved.
  • The move makes it easy to wonder to what extent Musk micromanages his companies.

Consumers are always looking for the next deal and yesterday it appeared that a new one popped up. Tesla had partnered up with Costco in Taiwan to run a special promotion. However, that deal is dead thanks to none other than Elon Musk himself.

Announced mostly on X, the partnership between Tesla and Costco offered several potential benefits. Prospective Tesla buyers had a new place to view, test drive, and ultimately buy their vehicle. In addition, the first 50 people to take advantage of the partnership received 5,000 km (3,100 miles) of free Supercharger juice and a Type 2 charger case.

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That sounds lovely and all but hours later, Elon Musk responded directly to posters about it to say that he had killed the deal. “I just canned this program. Was not approved,” he wrote on X. Keep in mind that this promotion was only supposed to run for two weeks in total. For whatever reason, Musk axed it anyway before it even commenced.

Auto sales were up in Taiwan overall during 2023 thanks in part to large government subsidies. Perhaps Musk believes that Tesla will continue to do well there regardless of this Costco promotion. It doesn’t appear as though he’s got something against the company, as another of his companies, Star Link, partnered with Costco in the past.

Destroying a program publicly hours after it was announced seems like a very bold choice. At the same time, Musk is undercutting his own workers by not believing that their decision to make this move was a good one. Perhaps they undercut him to begin with by signing up with Costco without getting his approval. Ultimately, all of this makes it easy to wonder just how much of a micromanager Musk is.