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:
I think Elon Musk is trying to use Tesla as an example of how he would like companies to use X, but Tesla shareholders should ask themselves if that’s good for Tesla or if it’s just good for X.
Creating a bunch of new accounts, something Tesla doesn’t do on other more popular social media platforms seems excessive to me – especially when you consider that most of these accounts simply repost from other Tesla accounts.
That seems like a waste of $50 per month for each account. Obviously, that’s not much for a $750 billion company, but it does raise eyebrows when that waste goes straight into the pockets of X, which is owned by Elon Musk, who also happens to be the CEO of Tesla.
I think X has the potential to become something great, but you can’t force it like that. It is going to happen or it won’t, but I don’t think doing shady things like that is going to help.
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Elon Musk has claimed that the Democratic party organized recent protests at Tesla locations worldwide. As he usually does with his wild claims lately, he hasn’t offered any proof whatsoever.
Over the last few weeks, there have been growing protests at Tesla locations around the word.
It started small with just a few locations in the US, but it has since grown to now dozens of locations every weekend, with sometimes hundreds of people at some locations.
Protestors have different reasons for wanting to disrupt Tesla, but they are mostly centered around seeing the company as Elon Musk’s piggybank and they are upset at his involvement in the government through his financial contribution to Trump’s election and his role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk took to X today to comment on the situation, and he made the claim that the protests at Tesla locations are funded by ActBlue:
An investigation has found 5 ActBlue-funded groups responsible for Tesla “protests”: Troublemakers, Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project and Democratic Socialists of America. ActBlue funders include George Soros, Reid Hoffman, Herbert Sandler, Patricia Bauman, and Leah Hunt-Hendrix. ActBlue is currently under investigation for allowing foreign and illegal donations in criminal violation of campaign finance regulations. This week, 7 ActBlue senior officials resigned, including the associate general counsel.
ActBlue is a political action committee (PAC) used by the Democratic Party.
Musk did not elaborate on what “investigation” he was referring to nor did he provide any proof to back up his claim. In fact, he even asked for people to help provide information:
“If you know anything about this, please post in replies.”
Musk directly named Reid Hoffman, his former Paypal Mafia friend turned foe due to political differences, who was quick to deny any involvement:
Just one more of Elon’s false claims about me: I never funded anyone for Tesla protests. I don’t condone violence. But it’s clear Americans are angry at him – it’s easier to explain away their anger, than to accept that actions have consequences.
While the Democratic Party could be sympathetic to the Tesla protestors, there’s no evidence that they started the “Tesla Takedown” movement or have any significant involvement.
As we previously reported, it started as a grassroots movement with some posts on BlueSky, an X competitor, last month.
It has since gained considerable momentum, and they are now using Action Network, an open platform, to organize. As it grew, some groups have gotten involved to organize local protests, like The Disruption Project, which claims to stand “against the unjust systems of racial capitalism, the hetero-patriarchy, white supremacy and settler colonialism.”
In Seattle, The Troublemakers, a local environmentalist group, has also been helping organize.
The biggest blow to Musk’s claim is that there have also been protests outside the US, including in Canada and Europe. It’s unlikely that the US Democratic party would be involved in those.
There are currently six protests planned in Europe by the “Tesla Takedown” in the coming weeks:
Musk has also been involved in European politics, promoting far-right parties throughout Europe.
Along with the claims about the Tesla protests, Musk also retweeted someone linking several Cybertrucks burning down at a Tesla location in Seattle to “Democrat NGOs”:
Again, this claim is without evidence. In fact, the fires are still under investigation and it hasn’t yet been confirmed if it was arson.
Electrek’s Take
Could the Democratic Party be involved in some of the protests? It wouldn’t shock me, but you can claim that without proof.
I think most people involved in the protests are just mad at Elon for any of the hundreds of stupid things he has done or said in the last few months, including doing a couple of Nazi salutes at Trump’s inauguration.
He prefers to think that there’s some grand conspiracy against him because that’s easier to swallow than people hating home for being a compulsive liar, oligarch dork with the sense of humor of a maladjusted 13-year-old.
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Environment
U.S. could reach deal with Canada that avoids oil and gas tariffs, energy secretary says
HOUSTON — The U.S. could reach an agreement with Canada that avoids tariffs on imports of oil, gas and other energy resources, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Monday.
Wright said such a scenario is “certainly is possible” but “it’s too early to say” in response to a question from CNBC during a press conference at the CERAWeek by S&P Global. The U.S. is in “active dialogue” with Canada and Mexico, the energy secretary said.
President Donald Trump has paused until April 2 tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports that are compliant with the agreement which governs trade in North America. Trump originally imposed broad 25% tariffs on goods from both countries as well as lesser 10% tariffs on energy imports from Canada.
It’s unclear, however, how much of the oil, gas and other energy that the U.S. imports from Canada is compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Wright declined to provide specifics when CNBC asked how much of those imports are USMCA compliant.
“I’m going to avoid the details for now,” Wright said. The energy secretary said, “We can get to no tariffs or very low tariffs but it’s got to be reciprocal” in an interview with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan.
Canada’s energy minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, warned last week that energy prices will rise in the U.S. if the tariffs on energy imports go into full effect.
“We will see higher gasoline prices as a function of energy, higher electricity prices from hydroelectricity from Canada, higher home heating prices associated with natural gas that comes from Canada and higher automobile prices,” Wilkinson told CNBC’s Megan Cassella in an interview.
The U.S. has been the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in the world for years. But many refiners in the U.S. are dependent on heavy crude imported from Canada. The U.S. imported 6.6 million barrels of crude oil per day on average in December, more than 60% of which came from Canada, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Wright acknowledged that the tariffs are creating uncertainty in energy markets as negotiations continue.
“We’re in the middle of negotiations for where things are going to go with tariffs, so that feels frightening and gripping right now but this time will pass,” Wright said. “Deals will be made, we’ll get certainty and we’ll have a positive economic environment for Americans going forward.”
U.S. crude oil fell more than 1% Monday to close at $66.03 per barrel, while global benchmark Brent closed at $69.28 per barrel. Crude oil futures have pulled back substantially as Trump’s trade policy creates uncertainty and OPEC+ has confirmed that it plans to gradually bring back 2.2 million barrels per day of production beginning next month.
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