Among the few: a software developer in San Francisco previously banned from Twitter, a former design student in Germany who now works for Tesla, a psychologist in Dayton, Ohio, and an information-technology worker in India.
People behind the handful of Twitter accounts are Tesla owners, electric-car proponents or investors in the auto maker, if not all three. The users share ebullient messages about Tesla vehicles, gossip about other auto makers and organize treks to corporate events.
They also defend Mr. Musk and his companies on the platform and through YouTube channels, podcasts and websites. Some have been accused of online harassment by other Twitter users, and, in at least one instance, the community turned against one of their own after the CEO questioned his allegiance.
“The gravity of this guy and the impact he’s having in so many industries is so massive that you just get pulled in,” said Omar Qazi, who jointly runs @WholeMarsBlog, one of the accounts that Mr. Musk replies to most often. “People are trying to attack you just for talking to him.”
Mr. Musk, as the world’s richest man and boss of a $1 trillion company, is one of Twitter’s most influential users. He has gained renown for posting memes, bashing short sellers and making eyebrow-raising statements, from mocking regulators to joking about quitting his job. This past week the Tesla CEO made an offer to buy the shares of Twitter he didn’t own in a deal valuing the company at roughly $43 billion.
Most of Mr. Musk’s Twitter activity consists of replying to other tweets, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Twitter data. As of Friday the Tesla boss has replied to tweets from about 5,700 accounts since June 2009, according to the Journal analysis. Roughly 20 accounts, nearly all of which have articulated support for Mr. Musk and his companies, have received more than a fourth of those replies.
Mr. Musk’s public connection with Tesla fans has nurtured a sense of community among investors and customers, his supporters say. Tesla benefits from the digital-content creators to help market its products and has largely avoided spending large sums on advertising. Company referral programs have provided customers with free vehicles and use of its quick-charging stations, among other perks.
Mr. Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment. Tesla didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Earl Banning, a psychologist in Ohio, is known in the Tesla community for taking a picture of his dogs in the front trunk of his Model X and helping to popularize the “Frunkpuppy” trend. Eventually Mr. Musk and his mother would contribute with their own pictures. “Once you’re kind of known as one of the people that Elon responds to, people want to follow you,” Mr. Banning said.
Mr. Banning, whose account @28delayslater has 70,100 followers, has embraced being a Tesla influencer. He said he logs into Twitter most mornings and then schedules tweets to post throughout the day, many of them memes about Tesla news or Mr. Musk.
When Tesla’s CEO said on Twitter that his Wikipedia page was insane in December 2019, German college student Vivien Hantusch suggested in a tweet that he join her, Mr. Qazi and others on their Tesla-focused podcast to discuss what was wrong with it. The group was invited to Mr. Musk’s residence and then recorded a three-hour interview.
Ms. Hantusch had about 134,200 followers in December 2021 when she deactivated her account @flcnhvy, even though it was one of the two accounts with the most replies from Mr. Musk.
Two screenshots of Tesla’s internal employee directory reviewed by the Journal show Ms. Hantusch is listed as an assistant to the CEO. Videos posted online from Tesla’s first European factory opening last month showed Ms. Hantusch alongside a group that included German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz and Mr. Musk. She didn’t respond to email and phone messages seeking comment.
Pranay Pathole, a software engineer from Pune, India, tweeted at the Tesla boss at least 160 times over roughly a year before he got a reply. In January 2018 he tweeted about a problem with the windshield wipers being triggered when opening a Tesla car door. Mr. Musk replied that the issue would be “fixed in next release,” a reference to a vehicle software update. Once the tweet came, Mr. Pathole said he ran to tell his mother and father.
Now Mr. Pathole has 125,100 followers on his account, @Ppathole, and fields requests from people to pitch business ideas to Mr. Musk. He recently asked if the CEO would “consider building a new social-media platform with an open source algorithm, where free speech is given top priority.” The Tesla chief replied, “Am giving serious thought to this,” and on Thursday he said that he would implement those ideas if he were able to take Twitter private.
“Musk possesses an extraordinarily savvy command of social media, and he has an army of Muskites that he can influence to treat any stock, or even cryptocurrency, as a meme stock,” said Eric Seufert, an independent analyst and owner of the Mobile Dev Memo trade blog.
It took Mr. Musk more than a decade to reach 40 million followers on Twitter in November 2020. He hit 80 million this month.
Around 2018, he stepped up engagement with individual investors. At that time Tesla was struggling to increase production to meet targets and capitalize on tax incentives made available for electric-vehicle purchases. Losses were piling up, too.
Investors who held on were rewarded. Tesla’s market capitalization crossed the $1 trillion threshold for the first time in October, roughly 30 times higher than in May 2019.
“There was basically a lot of people, a lot of very smart and powerful and well-connected people, betting against Tesla,” said Mr. Qazi, who bought his Tesla Model 3 about five years ago.
He created the account @tesla_truth in November 2018, using a photo of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, to convince people that Tesla’s vehicles were the cars of the future. Mr. Qazi said he tweeted frequently at short sellers, telling them they were wrong about Tesla and would lose a lot of money.
Mr. Qazi said his account was suspended several times for issues such as impersonating Mr. Jobs and copyright infringement, and was eventually banned in late 2019.
The account @WholeMarsBlog, which has 59,500 followers and that he operates with several other people, posts 148 tweets a day, on average.
Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment.
On Tuesday, Messrs. Qazi and Banning sent dozens of tweets about a news article citing research that said Twitter bots, or automated fake accounts, were being used to promote Tesla.
The two Tesla influencers shared memes mocking the writer and researcher, accusing them of being part of a group of Tesla skeptics. “Be honest, are you a bot?” Mr. Banning tweeted.
David Kirsch, the University of Maryland professor who conducted the research, said he has never had a position in or against Tesla stock.
One Tesla owner and investor who had connected with Mr. Musk on Twitter is no longer getting replies from the chief executive. In April 2019 Mr. Musk singled out Frederic Lambert, of Montreal, as being “de facto anti-Tesla” as a result of articles he wrote on Electrek, a website that aggregates news about electric vehicles.
Mr. Lambert said at that time, at least 50% of his stock portfolio was Tesla shares, and he owned a Tesla Model S and Model 3. “At first, I thought it had to be a mistake,” he said. His biggest hero had publicly turned on him, and he said the Tesla community followed its leader.
Over the years there has been a shift in Mr. Musk’s use of Twitter, and the conversations around Tesla have become polarized, Mr. Lambert said. He said the CEO will only engage with “people that are just extreme promoters.”
Concerns about online harassment within Tesla’s digital community have also resulted in litigation. Aaron Greenspan, an investor who had a short interest in Tesla, sued Messrs. Qazi and Musk in Northern California federal court in May 2020 alleging defamation and securities violations, among other claims. Mr. Greenspan alleges that Mr. Qazi harassed him through Twitter, phone calls, websites and texts.
In court filings attorneys representing Messrs. Qazi and Musk have said Mr. Greenspan hasn’t provided enough evidence to support his accusations and filed to dismiss the case. Mr. Qazi alleges that Mr. Greenspan has harassed him for years. Mr. Greenspan denied the allegation. The lawsuit is ongoing.
“It’s kind of cool in a way,” Mr. Qazi said, “if you look at the lawsuit, it says ‘Elon Musk and Omar Qazi.’”
