Tesla said advertising was useless. Then sales slowed down.

One year after starting to run ads, Tesla has yet to figure out its advertising strategy.

4/29/24 4:48PM

In May 2019, Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla “does not advertise or pay for endorsements. Instead, we use that money to make the product great.”

Four years later, at Tesla’s 2023 annual shareholder meeting, Musk changed his tune after acquiring Twitter, a company that makes money from selling ads.

"There's obviously a lot of people that follow the Tesla account and my account on Twitter — to some degree it is preaching to the choir and the choir is already convinced… we’ll try a little advertising and see how it goes,” Musk said, answering an audience question.

That advertising, it appears, has not gone well.

In March, Tesla started running ads on Musk’s newly acquired social media platform. Then, on April 22, Tesla fired its entire 40-person ad content team just four months after it launched, with Elon Musk commenting, “the ads were far too generic - could’ve been any car.” One day later, in what looks like an advertisement in all but name, American Idol judge Katy Perry tweeted a picture of her standing in front of a Cybertruck: “thx for delivery @ elonmusk.”

thx for the delivery @elonmusk #idol pic.twitter.com/nKB8Dqwig4
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) April 23, 2024

Why did Musk change his tune about advertising in the first place? Well, in 2019 when Musk was proudly anti-advertising, Tesla’s deliveries almost doubled from 63,000 in Q1 to 112,000 in Q4. However, growth has since slowed, with deliveries declining year over year by 8.5% in Q1 2024.

Advertising is an important growth strategy for automakers, especially in the US, where GM, Stellantis, Ford, and Toyota each spent more than $1 billion in 2022, so as sales slow for Tesla, it makes sense they would take ads for a test drive.

However, Tesla seems to be struggling to find its stride in advertising after 11 months, and the company advertising Musk’s cars on Musk's site feels redundant.

Max Knoblauch5/29/26

The Trump administration is reportedly planning a 50% made-in-America requirement for USMCA tariff relief

Qualifying for USMCA-related lower tariffs may soon require more US-made vehicle components, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to introduce a 50% US content requirement for vehicles covered by the trade pact to receive lower tariffs. The content would be measured by cost, according to the WSJ.

There currently isn’t any US-specific requirement for those lower tariff rates, but in order to receive preferential tariffs, vehicles are must contain at least 75% regional content (components made in North America). Per Reuters reporting, the Trump admin is seeking to raise the regional requirement to 82%.

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Overall, Tesla will likely have the easiest time qualifying for any stricter requirements. The automaker’s vehicles contained the highest amount of US/Canadian content in 2025, according to American University research. Ford, GM, and Stellantis all scored lower.

Notably: the underlying government data that many domestic content measurements rely on intentionally combines US and Canadian components, so it’s difficult to know exactly how much of any given vehicle is specifically US-made.

Exclusive | Trump Administration Wants Autos Under USMCA to Be at Least 50% Made in America

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Tom Jones5/29/26

The $640,000 Luce makes the average Ferrari look like a bargain

Put aside the shape; put aside the smoothing out of Ferrari’s iconic sharp edges; put aside, even, the calls from former Chairman and President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo to “take the Prancing Horse off.” On the grounds of price alone, Luce detractors might have a point.

By now, many of us will have read the criticisms of Ferrari’s first fully electric vehicle, as the Luce — which was unveiled to the world earlier this week and promptly saw the company’s shares crash out in New York and Milan — gets subtly shaded by competitors online and not-so-subtly shaded by basically everyone else.

What makes all of this worse for Ferrari is that, even by the luxury car maker’s notoriously high standards, they’ve slapped a pretty hefty price tag on the Luce, and the company’s CEO, Benedetto Vigna, has already been forced to defend the €550,000 ($640,000) price point, saying yesterday that it’s “fair to pay for innovation,” per Reuters.

While Ferrari’s cars have been getting more expensive of late, as recently as 2022, Ferrari’s average revenue per car sold was around $340,000. At nearly twice that price, this new electric model is obviously proving a little much (visually, conceptually, and financially) for many loyal and long-standing fans of the Prancing Horse to stomach.