Elon Musk’s Plan for the First Tesla Commercial Came From a 10-Year-Old

The Tesla CEO has decided to start a competition for fans to submit their own ads after a Michigan fifth-grader dropped the suggestion on him.
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Even a Silicon Valley genius like Elon Musk sometimes needs to turn to others for advice. On Wednesday, Musk announced on Twitter that Tesla will be kicking off a contest to have fans submit homemade ads for the electric carmaker’s first real commercial—after being inspired by a letter from a 10-year-old girl. 

It all started when Bria Loveday, a fifth-grader from Michigan, wrote a letter to Musk for a school project, her father, Inside EVs writer Steven Loveday, said on Twitter. In the letter, Bria mentioned that “I think that you should run a competition on who can make the best homemade Tesla commercial and the winners will get their commercial aired.”

@elonmusk Elon, my daughter wrote you a letter for a school project. She mailed it to Tesla, but I figured I'd paste here. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/ntGEL9WCh3

— Steven Loveday (@Writer_StevenL) March 2, 2017

Steven told CNN Money that Bria originally had planned to mail the letter to Tesla headquarters the old-fashioned way, but he suggested his daughter email it to the company instead. He said he fired it off to the carmaker’s public relations team, only to hear back within half an hour from an employee who was bringing it to Musk by hand.

Musk then took to Twitter to break the news that he was taking Bria up on her idea. 

Thank you for the lovely letter. That sounds like a great idea. We'll do it! https://t.co/ss2WmkOGyk

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2017

A Tesla spokesperson confirmed to CNN Money that the contest would be happening, but said the carmaker isn’t revealing details about it yet. 

While Tesla has not yet dabbled in the realm of car commercials, plenty of enterprising filmmakers have taken it upon themselves to do so for kicks in the years since Musk launched his EV company. (We’ve embedded a couple below for you to check out.)