Elon Musk (Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images)

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk said the electric carmaker will dabble in advertisements, a major shift for the company that has largely avoided traditional marketing.

“We’ll try a little advertising and see how it goes,” Musk said May 16 at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting, in response to an investor’s question.

Shares rose more than 2% in premarket trading.



Tesla has long prided itself on word-of-mouth among its fan base to market its vehicles. It’s built a formidable brand without paying for television, radio or print ads.

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Musk said in a subsequent interview with CNBC that paying for ads could be a way to expand beyond Tesla’s existing user base.

“It’s worth a try and we’ll see how effective it is,” he said. “I only just agreed to it so it’s not a fully formed strategy.”

Musk has used Twitter, which he now owns, as a marketing tool for Tesla. The social media site depends on advertising as its primary source of revenue, something newly appointed CEO Linda Yaccarino is expected to focus on.

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Musk told CNBC that some companies had pulled ads from Twitter after facing criticism from the social media site’s own crowdsourced fact-checking feature known as community notes. He didn’t name the advertisers, but said it cost Twitter $40 million.

Musk also said that he’s going to continue to say what he thinks on Twitter even if it causes some advertisers to abandon the platform.

“I’ll say what I want, and if the consequences of that is losing money, so be it,” he said.