Tesla discloses it spent $200,000 advertising on X

By Chris Isidore, CNN

New York (CNN) — Here’s one advertiser that social media platform X doesn’t have to worry about losing because it’s turned off by Elon Musk’s comments: Tesla.

The car company that famously shuns spending money on advertising spent $200,000 advertising on X through February of this year, it disclosed in an SEC filing this week.

It’s not clear when the spending started, because Tesla doesn’t break out any spending in 2023, as it does in other listings of what are called “related person transactions” in the filing. So it’s possible that all $200,000 was spent in just the first two months of this year.

X, formerly known as Twitter, has been hemorrhaging advertisers, its primary source of revenue, since Musk bought the platform in 2022.

Sometimes advertisers have pulled out due to concerns about being associated with Musk’s controversial comments, such as his retweet of a tweet in November that said Jewish communities push “hatred against Whites.” To which Musk commented in his retweet “You have said the actual truth.”

While Musk later apologized for his tweet, calling it his “dumbest” ever social media post, he took shots at advertisers who had left in its wake, telling them to “Go. F**k. Yourself.”

The loss of advertising revenue since Musk bought what was then called Twitter has put the future of the company into question, according to comments from Musk himself.

Tesla reluctant to advertise

Tesla has become a major automaker without spending any money on advertising in the past. Musk had dismissed the need to adverstise.

“Tesla does not advertise or pay for endorsements. Instead, we use that money to make the product great,” he said in a 2019 tweet.

But the company has been facing weaker growth in demand for electric vehicles than many had forecast, and the headwind of higher interest rates make it more expensive for consumers to finance their car purchases. In response, Tesla has been cutting prices. Still, Tesla just reported its first year-over-year drop in sales since the peak of the pandemic.

A year ago, in response to a question at the company’s shareholders meeting, Musk said the company would begin to advertise, though did not give any details.

The Tesla filing also disclosed that the company spent about $700,000 in 2023 and another $100,000 in the first two months of 2024 on aircraft operated by SpaceX, the rocket company he also owns. And it spent $200,000 in 2023 and $1 million so far this year with The Boring Company, a company that digs tunnels that Musk also owns and operates.

In addition the filing said that Musk also owns a security company, unnamed, that provides security services for him. And Tesla spent $2.4 million for such security services in 2023 and about $500,000 more so far this year.

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