The company, which rarely advertises even its own cars, is now promoting a vote to reward its CEO.
Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting will take place on November 6, where investors are set to vote on whether to approve a new, massive compensation package for CEO Elon Musk. The automaker has launched a dedicated website encouraging shareholders to back all of the board’s proposals. As Business Insider noted, Tesla has also begun promoting the initiative through paid advertising.
According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Tesla purchased ad placements across several social media platforms — including X (formerly Twitter), which Musk owns — as well as on Google Search. The move is unusual for the company, which for most of its history avoided advertising altogether, relying instead on word of mouth and Musk’s online presence to generate attention. In 2023, Tesla broke that long-standing rule under investor pressure, running small ad campaigns, but by 2024 it had disbanded its entire marketing department. In the first two months of 2025, the company reportedly spent just $10,000 on ads on X.
Back in 2018, Musk gave up his salary and bonuses in exchange for stock options tied to Tesla’s performance targets. The plan envisioned a tenfold increase in Tesla’s market capitalization — from $59.1 billion to $650 billion over ten years. In reality, Tesla hit $668.9 billion by the end of 2020, and as of October 2025 its valuation stands around $1.374 trillion.
Musk met all the required targets, and shareholders voted to grant him a $55 billion compensation package. However, legal challenges have prevented him from accessing it, with court proceedings still ongoing. The board’s official stance is that Musk is not a typical executive but rather a “visionary with a unique record of transformative innovation,” capable of turning Tesla into the most valuable company in human history.
Still, there are currently no guaranteed incentives to keep him in the role. To address that, Tesla has developed a new 10-year plan that would, among other goals, require the company’s valuation to reach $8.5 trillion. If Musk fulfills all the conditions, he would receive 423,743,904 shares in 12 tranches — worth more than $175 billion at today’s prices and roughly $1 trillion based on projected growth. In addition, Tesla plans to grant him a $29 billion bonus based on 2025 performance.
Earlier this month, Musk became the first person in history with a personal net worth exceeding $500 billion. Although his fortune has since dipped slightly, Forbes currently estimates his assets at $473.1 billion, keeping him the richest person on the planet.