Tesla has turned to using ‘edgy’ social media marketing amid a brand damage crisis caused by CEO Elon Musk.
Tesla famously didn’t use advertising until it started dabbling in it in 2023—shortly after Tesla CEO Elon Musk bought Twitter, a platform that relies on advertising.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for Tesla to start running ads on Twitter amid an exodus of advertisers on the controversial platform that rebranded to ‘X’.
Despite advertising for the first time, Tesla remains timid on that front and still primarily relies on other marketing strategies, like social media content and word of mouth.
Historically, Tesla’s social media presence has been quite tame. The automaker wouldn’t post much besides important releases and the occasional marketing material.
That changed in 2023 after Musk acquired the platform. He launched a new account for businesses that cost $1,000 monthly for the main account and then $50 per month for every other “affiliated account.” Tesla quickly created 13 different affiliated accounts for the platforms.
The number has since risen to 37 accounts since our original report. Many of these accounts are barely used today, but a few have become quite active.
They have ramped up their posts lately as Tesla is experiencing severe demand problems amid a brand crisis. Tesla is under boycotts from left-leaning people in the US over the belief that Musk is using Tesla as his own personal piggy bank to finance the rise of fascism in the US.
During that time, Tesla has ramped up its use of social media, primarily X, and it has turned to a growing trend amongst brands on social media: trying to be funny and edgy.
Companies like Wendy’s, Ryan Air, and others have popularized this marketing strategy by responding to social media content with funny replies that some may find offensive.
Tesla is giving it a try over the last few days, but it is falling flat as the sense of humour appears to be to the same level as its CEO’s; a stunted 14-year-old’s humor:
Here Tesla is making fun of the fact that Cybertruck still doesn’t have the “actual smart summon” feature, which some are calling ‘ASS’.
After launching a new Diamond Black color last week, Tesla used this meme, which fell flat:
This one is a bit better. It’s a play of Time’s new front page news about bringing back the dire wolf. Tesla says that it brought back the turn signal stalk:
However, the turn signal stalk was never extinct. Every car except Teslas still has one, and even Tesla’s Model Y still has it. They just didn’t remove it with the redesign.
Going really edgy, Tesla’s Optimus account even posted on adult content on X:
Will this new marketing effort pay off or will Tesla need more to counter the brand damage?
Electrek’s Take
I think we all know the answer to that question. Look, humor is humor. There are different senses of humor out there, and people like different things.
Some people may like these, but personally, I think they all fall flat.
Furthermore and more importantly, Tesla is almost entirely focusing its social media effort on X, which ranks 12th in the world for monthly users in social media.
Tesla is just preaching to the choir there. If it wants to have a real impact, it will have to support Musk’s competitors and go to Instagram, TikTok, etc.
It’s just the latest example of Musk stunting Tesla’s growth due to his extracurricular activities.
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