Some innovators aren’t attending CES 2025, citing “marketing collateral and desperation”
You may have noticed that some of your favorite innovators aren’t at CES 2025, and there may be good reasons for that.
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You may have noticed that some of your favorite innovators aren’t at CES 2025, and there may be good reasons for that.
The micro e-bike company JackRabbit is apparently too cool for this year’s CES convention.
Jack Rabbit cites heavy crowding, smoke-filled casinos, and “back-packs full of marketing collateral and desperation” as the reasons for their absence.
Despite believing that its lightweight, compact e-bike is a perfect fit for the CES, the company chose to skip this year’s convention.
This is because it’s supposedly impossible to navigate the convention, as the conference is comparable to walking through Times Square, JackRabbit said.
The setting, in the company’s opinion, doesn’t scream innovation, as you have to traverse through smoke-filled casinos to get to your next booth.
Have you ever been to Las Vegas during CES? According to JackRabbit, it’s a nightmare.
So, instead of “being stuck in the chaos,” the company is spending its week networking with companies and consumers on its own terms.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino, on the other hand, did attend CES 2025. Yaccarino said in a keynote that Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok will propel the social media platform to grow exponentially over the next year.
But where was Elon Musk?
Musk decided to skip the event as his companies, Tesla and Space X, also wanted to focus on the future outside of CES.
However, this is unsurprising, considering that Musk’s event only happened in October 2024.
The ‘We, Robot’ event showcased Tesla’s latest innovations, including the Cybercab, the robotaxi, and its latest Optimus robots.
It can also be assumed that Tesla and Space X are laser-focused on reaching their ambitious goals for 2025, which likely require a lot of attention and resources.
Musk’s attention has also been focused on other avenues, like politics and his total support of Donald Trump.
Therefore, CES might just seem too uncool for companies that want to set themselves apart from the more “mainstream” innovators who would sacrifice their firstborn for a booth at CES.