A public dare · 1 Arkansan · All-in goal $496,629
The internet
is buying this man
a Tesla Roadster
Houston wants the car. Houston’s bank account saw the cost, laughed, and left the chat. Tesla shows the thing October 1. Chip in ten bucks, grab a panel, or be the menace who pays the rest. Spots can be stolen. The money cannot.
Raised
$0
$496,629 to go of $496,629 all-in
Tesla Roadster reveal
Waco · Oct 1
7:30 PM Central. The clock is aimed at that minute, not a vibe.
Founders Series was $250,000. That is the sticker on the receipt. Tags, insurance, and the IRS sit on top of it, on purpose.
The receipt
Not just the sticker
Jonathan Wilke built outbid.lol, then posted the most useful spoiler on the internet: the money was coming in, and he had totally forgotten about the tax. That post is real. He is not in this, and he did not ask to be. We just believed him. The receipt has the car, the Arkansas bill, and a pile for the IRS, including self-employment tax, so the punchline is a car and not a letter that says you cannot afford the car.
Invoice · Houston · Arkansas
- Founders Series, last price Tesla published$250,000The 2017 Founders Series was $250,000, paid up front, capped at 1,000 cars. The base car was $200,000. Tesla pulled both numbers and, as of this writing, has not printed a new purchase price. The October 1 reveal is the next time they might.
- Reveal buffer, if Waco prints a higher sticker$10,000A tad, not a slush fund. If October 1 comes in under $250,000, this sits on the car as tires, PPF, and the first unplanned invoice. If it comes in wildly over, the goal moves in public.
- Arkansas state use tax, 6.5% of $260,000$16,900New vehicles at $4,000 or more are taxed at 6.5% statewide. You pay the Department of Finance and Administration when you title the car, including on an out-of-state buy. $16,900 is 6.5% of the $260,000 we are budgeting.
- Local tax, first $2,500 only$94Arkansas stops local tax on a vehicle at the first $2,500. The local piece on this title is $94. The city and county stay off the website.
- Destination$1,390Tesla’s usual destination fee on current cars is $1,390. The Roadster’s number is not published. If delivery to Arkansas costs more, it comes out of the buffer before anyone pretends otherwise.
- Title, tags, and the electric-vehicle fee$243Title $10. Registration $30, the top passenger-car band, because Tesla has not published a curb weight. Validation decal $2.50. Postage $0.50. Electric-vehicle fee $200 a year under Arkansas Code § 27-14-614. That is $243 at the revenue office, once.
- Year-one personal property tax$2,258Arkansas assesses a car at 20% of value, then applies local millage. No homestead credit on a vehicle. Year one, where this car will be titled, is $2,258. The assessor can still nudge it. The county is not a souvenir.
- Year-one insurance, estimate, not a quote$10,000A agreed-value policy on a 250 mph car is not a Camry quote. $10,000 is a placeholder so the goal is not pretending insurance is free. A real binder replaces this line.
- Wrap or logos, design and install$8,000A printed full wrap on a car this shape runs about $6,000 to $12,000 in 2026 once someone designs it, prints it, and installs it. $8,000 covers that, or a smaller set of panel logos if nobody takes the wrap. Shop sales tax is inside the number. If the real invoice is lower, the difference stays with the car.
- Federal income-tax reserve$123,763Logo spots and links are advertising, not gifts, so this pot is very likely ordinary income. Reserved at 2026 single brackets, standard deduction $16,100, assuming this is the income for the year. Not tax advice. A CPA can still change the filing. The reserve is here so the filing cannot sink the car.
- Arkansas income-tax reserve, top rate 3.7%$16,3052026 top individual rate is 3.7%. Same assumption as the federal line: single, this pot is the income, no magic deductions.
- Self-employment tax cushion$37,810If the logos are a business, Social Security and Medicare show up on top of income tax. This line is the cushion for that, on purpose. Wage base $184,500 for 2026, plus the extra 0.9% Medicare over $200,000. If a CPA says it does not apply, the leftover stays with the car. It is not a quiet bonus, and it is not optional in the goal.
- Card processing, 4%, grossed up$19,866The processor takes a cut before the deposit lands. 4% is the planning number for a merchant of record. Grossed up so every line above still clears.
Glory
What your money buys
These get you on the board. Spark is $10. Bolt is $25. $69 is Giggity. The car itself is the next section, and a wrap covers all of it.
On the car
Pick a spot. See your name.
Door sill, rocker, quarter, hood, roof, door. Real panels, not decals on this page. An open slot is the sticker price. The $250 raise is only for a physical spot whose slots are already full. It is not the price of number one on the leaderboard. That board moves a dollar at a time. Losing the paint does not lose the money. A wrap somebody already holds costs $25,000 more, not $250, and it covers every paid logo. The Hype Man plate stays on the car anyway. That is the person whose link brought in the most money, and it is a name, not a check.
The boards
Pay to be seen
All-time is the flex. Today resets at midnight Central. The chart is whoever just showed up, ten bucks included. Number one here is one dollar more than the biggest pledge. The $250 raise is only for a taken spot on the actual car.
All-time
The board is empty. First ten bucks writes history.
Today
Nobody yet today. Midnight Central wiped the slate. The all-time board is still judging you.
Just showed up
Newest first. The bar is only so you can see the shape. A small pledge still gets a line.
Silence. For now.
The board is empty. Ten dollars writes the first number one.
Sponsor hall
Everyone who left a link
Any pledge with a site, a wordmark, or an X handle lands here. Not just the whales. The point is the click.
No links yet. Be the first name that goes somewhere.
Contagion
Bring the crowd
Pledge once and you get a link. Whoever brings in the most money through that link is The Hype Man. Their name goes on the car and a wrap does not cover it. No cash. No tax form from this site. The crown moves when someone else's link brings in more.
Nobody is contagious yet.
Notes from the last guy who did this
How this stays up when the timeline notices
Hard to knock over
Pledges are rate-limited, idempotent, and parameterized. Bots eat a honeypot. On a real domain this sits behind Cloudflare so a bored teenager cannot DDoS the dream.
Counts that do not die
outbid.lol melted its analytics provider at a couple hundred thousand visitors. Visitor totals live in our own database, so the homepage cannot be taken hostage by someone else's dashboard.
Tax is not a surprise
Jonathan Wilke posted that he forgot the tax. This receipt does not. Federal, Arkansas, and self-employment tax are reserved so the car still happens after Uncle Sam takes a cut. Checkout should run through a merchant of record. The leftover, if a CPA says a line was too fat, stays with the car.
One sentence, screenshot native
Pay. Climb the board. Help buy the car. The numbers are huge on purpose. If this pops off, the story has to survive a crop on X.
Fine. Questions.
Is this a scam?+
No. It is worse: it is honest. Strangers on the internet are being asked to buy one man in Arkansas a Tesla Roadster because the bit is good. The goal is itemized. The board is public. If that still feels like a scam, keep your ten dollars.
Are you Tesla?+
Absolutely not. Tesla, Roadster, and related marks belong to Tesla, Inc. This is a fan with a shopping list and a domain idea. They did not ask for this.
What is Waco?+
A city in Texas. Tesla set the second-generation Roadster reveal for October 1, 2026, at 7:30 PM Central, in Waco. The clock on this page counts to that minute. It is not a fee, not a person, and not a line item. The $10,000 buffer is in case the sticker they print is higher than the old $250,000 Founders price.
Who is Jonathan?+
Jonathan Wilke, @jonathan_wilke, built outbid.lol. On August 19, 2026 he posted that the site was making money and that he had, his words, totally forgotten about the tax. That post is linked on the receipt. He is not involved here, does not endorse this, and did not ask for the shoutout. The receipt exists because of that post: car, Arkansas bill, and a reserve for the IRS, including self-employment tax, so a surprise letter cannot eat the car.
Where does the money go?+
The car, Arkansas use tax, tags, the EV fee, a year of property tax, a year of insurance, card fees, and a tax reserve so logo money does not become a surprise bill. Not a yacht. Not a token. The after-the-car numbers are a bonus level and do not move the Roadster goal.
Is this tax deductible?+
No. You are not donating to a charity. A pledge with no logo and no link might be a gift. A pledge that buys a logo, a sill, or a link is sponsorship. Either way, do not deduct it.
Will the IRS come after Houston?+
If this works, yes, in the boring way. Money paid for a logo or a link is income, not a birthday gift. The receipt reserves federal income tax, Arkansas income tax at 3.7%, and self-employment tax. The self-employment line stays. Logos and links look like a business to the IRS, and a business owes Social Security and Medicare on top of income tax. It assumes a single filer with no other income in 2026. That is a cushion, not a tax opinion. A CPA gets the real return. If the cushion is too fat, the extra stays with the car. It is not a second salary.
What is a door sill?+
The metal strip at the bottom of the door, the thing you step over getting in. On the real Roadster, not a graphic we invented for the homepage. Hood, roof, rocker, quarter, and door are the same idea: paint on the car. The decal tier is the only one that is just this website.
Can someone take my spot?+
Yes, and getting it back is not guaranteed. A car has two door sills, two rockers, two quarters, and two doors. Hood and roof are one each. An open slot is the sticker price. Once every slot is held, the only way on is to outbid by $250. Your old money stays in the fund. It does not reserve the spot and it does not come back to you. If two people hit the last slot at the same time, one gets it and the other is told to try again. The public leaderboard is different: number one is one dollar more than the biggest single pledge, and the older pledge wins a tie.
Does paying the rest wrap the car?+
Only if that one check is larger than every other single pledge already on the board. If a bigger check is already sitting there, the leftovers do not include the wrap. A wrap paints the whole car. It covers the hood, the roof, the door, the sill, the rocker, and the quarter. Those spots stay on the board. They do not go on the paint while a wrap is held. Once someone has the wrap, the next person needs $25,000 more than the holder’s total, not $250, and then the panels matter again. The original money is never refunded.
What do I actually get?+
A rank on the board. A shoutout if you want one. A line in the sponsor hall if you leave a site, a logo word, or an X handle. A physical spot if you pick one and clear the price. A tracked link after you pledge, so the people you drag here count for you.
What is the referral thing?+
Pledge, then share your link. Whoever brings in the most money through it is The Hype Man. Their name is plated on the car, and a wrap does not cover that plate. It is a nickname, not a cash prize, not a cut of the money, and not something this site pays them. The name moves when someone else brings in more. 100 visitors is a spark plug. 1,000 is a signal. 10,000 is a flare. 100,000 visitors and $10,000 brought in is just a Wildfire badge.
What is the thing under the car?+
A side quest, and it is not the point. It sits at the bottom on purpose. If the Roadster gets paid and people keep going, the base is $2.5 million left after the car and the tax, the primary is $5 million, enough to park in a CD or a high-yield account and live on the interest. Stay-at-home dad math. It does not change the car goal.
Refunds?+
If Tesla officially kills the second-gen Roadster, unused funds go back. If they delay, we wait. The money is for this car, not a Civic with a spoiler. Pledges in this preview are board entries until card checkout is wired to a merchant of record.
Who is Houston?+
One person in Arkansas with a public dare and a receipt. The bank account is not taking interviews. That is the entire lore.
How does this not die the moment it pops off?+
The board lives in Postgres, not a spreadsheet. Visitor counts are ours, because outbid.lol watched its analytics vendor fall over. Pledges are rate-limited and idempotent. On a real domain this sits behind Cloudflare. Checkout should run through a merchant of record so sales tax on the card charge is their paperwork. The car’s Arkansas tax is a different bill, and it is already on the receipt.
After the car, if anyone is still here
Stay-at-home dad math
The Roadster is the bit. This is not. If the car gets paid and the board keeps moving, the base is $2.5 million left in a CD or a high-yield account. The primary is $5 million. Interest does the living. Uncle Sam is already in those gross numbers, same assumptions as the receipt. It does not change the car goal.
Locked until the Roadster line clears. Then these start moving.