Tesla doesn’t usually advertise its cars, but it’s spending on ads to promote Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package

Marc Andreessen says too many people are letting their feelings about Tesla CEO Elon Musk inhibit them from learning from his example.

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Tesla has turned to an unusual strategy to get Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package over the line.
The EV giant is buying ads on X, Reddit, and Facebook, urging shareholders to approve Musk’s pay.
Tesla famously doesn’t advertise much and relies on Musk’s social media presence to promote its cars.

Tesla is going all out to get Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package over the line.

The EV maker has purchased ads urging shareholders to vote for the proposed compensation plan on a host of social media platforms, according to a disclosure filed with the SEC on Thursday.

The ads, which ran on X, Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Search, all call for investors to support the $1 trillion package at Tesla’s annual meeting in November.

One ad posted on X — which Musk owns — features an image of Tesla’s Optimus robot and a banner saying that the pay deal will “create trillions in shareholder value.”

Unlike other car brands, Tesla famously avoids mass advertising campaigns for its products, instead preferring to rely on Musk’s sizable public presence and prolific posting on X.

The automaker began doing some small-scale advertising in 2023 in response to investor pressure, but reportedly laid off its entire marketing team during widespread job cuts in April 2024.

Even Tesla’s spending on ads on X appears to have shrunk to almost nothing. The company paid $400,000 for advertising on the Musk-owned platform in 2024, but spent just $10,000 on X ads in the first two months of this year, according to SEC filings.

Advertising for Musk’s pay packages appears to be an exception to the rule, however. Tesla disclosed last May that it had bought ads encouraging shareholders to reapprove the billionaire’s previous $55 billion pay plan after it was struck down by a Delaware judge.

That package was slapped down by the same judge in December 2024, prompting Tesla to propose the new $1 trillion compensation plan to replace it.

The pay deal requires Musk to meet a series of tough milestones over the next decade to unlock the entire allocation of shares, which could eventually be worth around $1 trillion.

These include selling nearly 12 million EVs and one million Optimus robots, as well as growing Tesla’s market capitalization to $8.5 trillion.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment, sent outside normal working hours.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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