Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk said the electric vehicle maker is to dabble in advertisements, a major departure for the 20-year-old company.
“We’ll try a little advertising and see how it goes,” Musk said on Tuesday at Tesla’s annual shareholders’ meeting in response to an investor’s question.
Tesla has long prided itself on word-of-mouth among its fan base to market its vehicles. It has built a formidable brand without paying for traditional advertising on television, radio or in newspapers or magazines.
Photo: Reuters
Musk said in a subsequent interview with CNBC that paying for ads could be a way to expand beyond its existing user base as the company grows.
“It’s worth a try and we’ll see how effective it is,” he said. “I only just agreed to it so it’s not a fully formed strategy.”
Musk has used Twitter, which he now owns, as a marketing tool for Tesla. The social media site depends on advertising as its primary source of revenue, something newly appointed Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is expected to focus on.
Musk told CNBC that some companies had pulled ads from Twitter after facing criticism from the social media site’s own crowdsourced fact-checking feature known as community notes.
He did not name the advertisers, but said that it cost Twitter US$40 million.
Musk also said that he is going to continue to say what he thinks on Twitter, even if it causes some advertisers to abandon the platform.
“I’ll say what I want, and if the consequences of that is losing money, so be it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Musk is calling out people who work from home, saying that firing up the laptop from home lowers productivity and sends the wrong signal to employees who do not have that option.
“People building the cars, servicing the cars, building houses, fixing houses, making the food, making all the things that people consume. It’s messed up to assume that, yes, they have to go to work, but you don’t,” he said in an interview with CNBC. “It’s not just a productivity thing, I think it’s morally wrong.”
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