Years after Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk famously shunned the idea of advertising for the EV automaker he’s changing his tune. It’ll be the first time in the company’s history that it’s run ads anywhere and it just might come at the best time possible.
Initially, the revelation that Tesla will begin advertising started as a response from Musk to a question regarding his position on ads now that he’s the CEO of Twitter, a platform desperate for ad revenue. “So I guess I should say advertising is awesome, and everyone should do it,” Musk said at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas. “We’ll try out a little advertising and see how it goes.” When asked for additional information on the game plan, Musk simply said “I just agreed to it; I don’t have a fully formed strategy.”
So for now, we’ll have to wait to see what Tesla ads end up looking like. While it sounds like a flat reversal of a previous position, digging a little deeper gives us more context. In 2019, Musk famously tweeted “Tesla does not advertise or pay for endorsements. Instead, we use that money to make the product great.”
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It’s very much worth noting that in the exact same thread where Musk says that, he later says “Maybe so eventually, but it will be information & entertainment, not trickery.” Interestingly, attendees at the meeting cheered the news so much that Musk remarked on how well-received the idea was. “I didn’t realize people wanted it that much,” he said.
For Tesla, beginning advertising seems like as perfect a time as any. Now more than ever before it needs to leverage its position to continually gain ground on other EV automakers. It also provides an opportunity to somewhat publicly clap back at public opinion. Finally, who knows if Tesla ends up with some sort of sweetheart deal to advertise on Twitter, which Musk also heads up, for now at least.
