Elon Musk was taken by surprise when he discovered that Tesla influencers on YouTube earn significantly more than on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
What Happened: On Thursday, responding to allegations of being a “paid promoter” for Tesla, Farzad Mesbahi revealed that his YouTube earnings from ad revenue were 50-100 times higher than what he made on X.
“YouTube pays me 50-100x what X does [through] advertising revenue, yet these folks think my sharing the same exact content on X, which I've been making since 2021 before Elon's acquisition, somehow makes me and others "paid promoters" even though I've received precisely $0.00 from Tesla and/or Elon to make content,” he said.
Musk, surprised by this revelation, asked, “Wow, you really get so much more from YouTube?” In response, Mesbahi confirmed, explaining that the majority of YouTube ad revenue comes from midroll ads and higher video retention rates.
Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox.
Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt also joined the conversation, stating that most Tesla YouTubers he knows earn 25 to 75 times more revenue per video on YouTube compared to X. He said that X has so far enabled pre-roll ads for only a few creators, but it still doesn’t compare to YouTube’s payout.
Why It Matters: This revelation comes in the wake of Musk’s efforts to challenge YouTube’s dominance by introducing new ad-targeting features on X. The platform now allows advertisers to run ads before videos from their chosen creators, as well as on the main timeline and the creator's profile.
Despite these changes, a poll conducted by Benzinga in June revealed that a low percentage of people are paying for the subscription plans on X.
Previously, content creator Jimmy Donaldson, popularly known as MrBeast also tested the monetization efforts on X and found them lacking compared to YouTube. In February, while sharing the result of his experiment, MrBeast said, “My first X video made over $250,000! But it's a bit of a façade. Advertisers saw the attention it was getting and bought ads on my video (I think) and thus my revenue per view is prob higher than what you'd experience.”
Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link.
Image via Shutterstock
Read Next:
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.