Sept. 7 – According to newly released regulatory filings, Tesla spent $400,000 on advertising in 2024 on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk. However, with sluggish vehicle sales, the automaker’s ad spending on X in 2025 is expected to be only a fraction of that.
Tesla disclosed that in the first two months of 2025, it spent just $10,000 on X ads. Unless ad budgets rise sharply later this year, total 2025 ad spending will amount to only $60,000. By comparison, during the same period last year, Tesla had already spent $200,000 on X. After early 2024, Tesla’s ad pace slowed significantly, with only another $200,000 added throughout the rest of the year.
Tesla had historically avoided advertising altogether. But in 2023, under shareholder pressure, CEO Elon Musk announced the company would begin experimenting with ads. By late 2023 and early 2024, Tesla ads began appearing in Google search results, on YouTube, and also on X.
It remains unclear whether Tesla’s spending on X increased after February, but Google’s ad transparency database shows the company still has around 700 active ads running across Google Search, YouTube, and other platforms.
Beyond advertising, the filings reveal intercompany transactions within Musk’s business empire. Tesla paid SpaceX about $800,000 in 2024 to lease a private jet owned by the rocket company. Musk frequently uses the arrangement to travel between the headquarters of his various companies. However, this spending is also set to decline: as of February 2025, Tesla had paid only about $40,000 in jet leasing fees to SpaceX.
Providing security for Musk’s travel also comes at a steep cost. Tesla disclosed in its proxy statement that in 2024 it paid $2.8 million to a Musk-affiliated security company, up from $2.4 million in 2023 when the relationship began. In the first two months of 2025 alone, the security firm had already received $500,000 from Tesla. As in previous years, Tesla noted that these payments represent only “a portion of the total security costs associated with Musk.”
The largest intercompany transaction in 2024, however, involved xAI. The company paid Tesla $198.3 million last year, almost entirely for purchases of Tesla’s Megapack energy storage batteries, which xAI is deploying at its Tennessee data center. In the first two months of 2025, xAI made another $3.68 million payment to Tesla for additional Megapack units.
Musk’s ventures also benefit his brother Kimbal. In October 2024, during Tesla’s “We, Robot” event, Kimbal’s drone company Nova Sky Stories provided aerial performances. Tesla paid $300,000 to Nova Sky Stories for its services, according to the newly disclosed proxy filing.
