Tesla is paying $20,000 a year to be on Elon Musk’s X, and it’s not clear why
Tesla keeps creating new paying accounts on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) to the point that it is now likely paying around $20,000 per year to be on the social media platform.
It’s not clear what it is getting in return.
Public companies, like Tesla, have to disclose any “related transaction” that may have conflict of interest between its executives or board members and any other companies that they have interests in.
For example, Tesla often disclosed dealings with SpaceX over the shared use of Elon Musk’s plane or the latter’s purchase of Tesla parts.
Now Tesla is going to have more to disclose and possibly justify to its shareholders as it is starting to spend more money on X (formerly Twitter), which is under the ownership of its CEO, Elon Musk.
X has been having issues behind being profitable with advertising, and it has turned to subscription services.
Twitter Blue, now X Premium, is a $8 per month subscription service for X users. It “verifies” the user, gives them a blue badge, and gets them more visibility.
But X is also pushing a subscription for businesses called “Verified Organizations” with similar features:
It is quite expensive. X charges $1,000 a month for the main account and then $50 per month for every other “affiliated account.”
Tesla is paying for this service and Electrek has found 13 accounts affiliated to Tesla’s verified org account.
It means that Tesla is paying $1,650 per month – or roughly $20,000 per year – to be on X.
Where things are starting to look excessive is that Tesla appears to be launching several new accounts requiring an additional $50 per month payment for every aspect of its business since Musk took over Twitter and launched this new subscription service.
For example, Tesla launched a new “Tesla North America” account last month, a new “Tesla Europe” account in January, a new “Tesla AI” account in May, a new “Tesla Megapack” account in January, and new “Tesla Optimus” account also in January.
This strategy is unique to X as Tesla operates only a single official account on other social media platforms, like Instagram and Youtube.
The Tesla Optimus account has posted a single tweet since it was created in January:
Tesla has been paying $50 per month for this account which has been sitting useless for most of the time.
The automaker has also been paying “affiliate accounts” for executives like Franz von Holzhausen, Drew Baglino, and Tom Zhu, who all rarely use their accounts for anything other than repost Tesla’s own official posts.
Electrek’s Take
Update: Tesla fans seem to be missing the point here. They are focusing on the amount, which everyone agrees is meaningless for Tesla. It’s not the amount the problem, it is the decision-making being a slippery slope. Ironically, I explained it on X: