“I blew off meeting him”: Brad Keselowski recalls the time he shunned Elon Musk

Brad Keselowski spoke about the instance when he had a chance to meet Elon Musk but eventually passed on the opportunity. In a recent episode of the Harvick Happy Podcast, the RFK Racing co-owner made a trip down memory lane, recalling the incident from 2009.

At the time, Keselowski had just received his first NASCAR Cup Series contract to drive the #2 Mustang for Team Penske and he also bought his first car, which was a Tesla. The Ford pilot walked into the showroom and ran a test drive on one of their electric cars.

"I bought one of the first Teslas. I got my first Cup contract in '09... had a friend who said, 'Man, you ought to go check out this Tesla thing.' I went to one of the few Tesla dealerships; couldn't have been bigger than this room right here," Keselowski told Kevin Harvick. "I walked in the store, test drove one of their electric cars. I test drove the car, drove it back into the dealership and I go, 'Yeah, I think I'll buy one.'"

After putting the initial deposit down, the lady at the desk asked if Keselowski wanted to talk to Elon Musk, who was present at the store that day. Brad Keselowski turned down the offer.

"Nobody even knew who Tesla was...and the lady goes, oh the owner's in the back. Do you wanna talk to him? And I was like, No, I'll just put the deposit down. That's one of my many Elon Musk stories. I blew off meeting him... I regret that," Keselowski laughed.

However, that is not the funniest Tesla encounter that the veteran driver has had. In a 2021 episode of Endless Hustle on Bro Bible, Brad Keselowski recalled another story that he called one of his "all-time dumb moves."

Brad Keselowski once ditched a 400X IPO share offered by Tesla

When Brad Keselowski purchased his Tesla, the company had just one dealership, and that was in downtown Los Angeles. Nevertheless, a few years after Keselowski had bought the car, Tesla Motors mailed him with one ask and one offer.

The ask was that Tesla wanted to advertise Brad Keselowski as the latter had purchased one of their first cars. Needless to say, Keselowski could not agree to that because he had other automotive deals going on.

However, Tesla also offered Brad Keselowski an IPO share. He recalled the mail saying,

"Since you bought one of our first cars, we (Tesla) want to let you in on the IPO early.This is one of my all-time dumb moves. You know what I did with that letter? Threw it away."

"When I got the letter, it was circa ’12. Right before the IPO. From what I could tell, it was probably a 400x, so if I put $100 in, what would that be? $40,000," he added.

Currently, the Rochester native is in his third season driving for RFK Racing, a team that he co-owns. He sits 9th in the Cup Series point standings with 498 points to his name. Keselowski's most recent win came this year in the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway on May 12. Besides that, he has amassed seven top-5s and nine top-10s this season.