Tesla has launched a new referral program in the U.S., replacing car purchase discounts with Full Self-Driving (Supervised, FSD) credits. Referees receive one month of free FSD, while referrers receive either one month of free FSD or 99 USD in Tesla credits once the referred user begins paying.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s “Refer and Earn” terms no longer list any models as eligible purchases for either the buyer or the referrer. This means that if you purchase a Tesla today using a friend’s referral code, neither party will receive any reward.
How does FSD Recommendation work?
Participants must own a registered, hardware-compatible Tesla and must not have previously paid for FSD within the past 12 months or purchased FSD outright. Additional restrictions apply to recent buyers: anyone who received a free FSD trial on a new vehicle cannot use a referral link within 12 months after the trial ends.
Vehicle rewards have been discontinued.
Greater changes are hidden within Tesla’s “Refer and Earn” page. Buyer benefits now apply only to solar panels, while referrer benefits cover solar products, first test drives (up to 30 per account lifetime), and the new FSD referral reward.
Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck appear only in loyalty rewards, applicable to existing owners purchasing another Tesla product. Model S and Model X are not listed at all.
Tesla has not announced this change. The page lists the update time as "February 24, 2026," so it is unclear when the vehicle was actually removed from the list.
This stands in stark contrast to the program’s previous positioning. Tesla’s referral program has always centered around selling cars. When Tesla relaunched the program in August 2024, buyers received a $1,000 discount on a Model S, Model X, Model Y, or Model 3, while referrers earned $500 in credits. Over the past decade, Tesla has canceled and restarted the program multiple times, but vehicles have always remained at its core. That is no longer the case.
Key Metrics
This is one of the key metrics in Elon Musk's 2025 CEO performance bonus, which includes the milestone of "10 million active FSD subscriptions." That's precisely why Tesla began disclosing this number in January this year.
The free month obtained by friends does not count toward this total. Only paid conversions are counted, and the new plan rewards precisely this event.
Electrek's perspective
For Tesla, this is a low-cost initiative that directly builds on one of its most important current businesses: selling FSD. In the past, Tesla offered a $1,000 discount to incentivize referrals; now, it provides just one month of software already installed in the vehicle, and the referrer receives the same software or credits redeemable only at Tesla. In exchange, Tesla gains a subscriber paying $99 per month.
Since the reward is only available to those who already own a Tesla, this program will not add any new vehicles to the fleet. Its goal is to convert existing fleet owners into subscribers. Tesla has sold approximately 8.9 million vehicles by the end of 2025, but only 1.74 million are paying for FSD, leaving significant room for growth. At the pace of the third quarter, we estimate it will take roughly eight more years to reach 10 million subscribers.
Therefore, Tesla stopped rewarding referrals that required selling a car and instead began paying for referrals that drive growth in Musk’s compensation metrics. We believe this is sufficient to illustrate the company’s current priorities.
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