Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Elon Musk has launched a twitter tirade in which he appears to accuse reporters of lying about Tesla, to attract advertising from other car makers and fossil fuel producers (last tweet in the quote below).
Elon Musk complains of ‘holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies’ in tirade
Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized media companies.
Musk said distrust of journalists was responsible for President Donald Trump’s election.
Robert Ferris | @RobertoFerris
Published 3:38 PM ET Wed, 23 May 2018
Elon Musk is not happy with Tesla’s recent media coverage, to put it mildly.
…
The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them https://t.co/Ay2DwCOMkr
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018
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Thought you’d say that. Anytime anyone criticizes the media, the media shrieks “You’re just like Trump!” Why do you think he got elected in the first place? Because no ones believes you any more. You lost your credibility a long time ago.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018
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Problem is journos are under constant pressure to get max clicks & earn advertising dollars or get fired. Tricky situation, as Tesla doesn’t advertise, but fossil fuel companies & gas/diesel car companies are among world’s biggest advertisers.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018
…
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/23/elon-musk-complains-of-holier-than-thou-hypocrisy-of-media.html
I don’t agree with Elon Musk’s assertion that journalists just want to attract big oil advertising money. I think most journalists want to do the right thing, even if many of them are are hopelessly biased on some subjects.
Perhaps the stress of watching Tesla Inc. burn through an estimated $7,430 / minute is finally getting to Musk.
Musk didn’t need to advertise because the media hype did it for him well ahead of the first car roll-out, despite lengthy delays.
Forget the fact(s) that environmental subsidies are the only thing keeping his companies afloat and that the average taxpayer cannot afford a Tesla.
Musk’s animosity toward the press probably has more to do with the negative press he has received after his “auto-pilot” cars killed and injure his customers.
Much like computer climate models, sleeping at the wheel when the auto-pilot is on could lead us blindly off the cliff.
“cars killed and injure his customers”
The level of damages in any single instance is often due to chance and not relevant for risk analysis. The level of “not avoiding things that should be avoided” is.
The media treats plane incidents when nobody was seriously hurt as minimally important stuff and not a measure of a serious issue in a plane company. When all signs are ignored and an unsafe landing is done finishing outside the runway and nobody is hurt, it’s a serious issue; but journalists don’t count it, they want to count accidents and dead people.
Dead people only matter for the past, they don’t matter in the future – they are already dead. They count for their families, we are not their families.
Only risks matter in the future. A count of casualties is almost always the wrong metric.
Good points.
FEAR has become the main tool for extremist sales-weasels from insurance, security alarm to environmentalists, politicians and journo-types.
What is the probability of anybody we know dying at the hand of a terrorist?
With 7.9 people on earth probably less than 1% … yet we’ve spent trillions fighting terrorism; which was mostly paid out to expert analysis think tank types who love globetrotting first-class and expensing out meetings at the finest resorts.
P.S. I used to read NTSB light aircraft accident reports, what struck me was that the main factor in most accidents happened just after takeoff and were usually caused by the pilot forgetting to switch to the full tank (A or B).
“What is the probability of anybody we know dying at the hand of a terrorist?”
I don’t think that is well defined, and in any case you wouldn’t be able to determine it by looking at statistics, unlike accidents:
– new trends in terrorism appear (car attacks, truck attacks, AK-47 in train, hammer, knife, gas cylinders, now ricine)
https://www.thelocal.fr/20171003/paris-terror-probe-opened-after-bomb-found-in-plush-neighbourhood
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/07/gas-tanks-found-in-unmarked-car-by-paris-notre-dame-cathedral-sp/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/18/french-police-foil-ricin-terror-plot-arrest-egyptian-brothers/
– many attacks fail because of difficulty with handling an AK-47, not being able of detonate a gas cylinder, or a terrorist literally shooting himself in the foot
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3050216/Heavily-armed-jihadist-planning-attacks-churches-shot-arrested-French-police-implicated-murder-dancer-gunned-car.html
– not every terrorist will always be that incompetent
– probably because President Trump is clueless, incompetent and has no idea how to fight ISIS, ISIS has apparently stopped being interested in holding a territory, but where are its trained fighters going?
– unlike extreme weather events, which has almost no true outliers (we have baseline over a century), mass terror attacks are outliers, with no baseline
Tesla will crash and burn and it will all be someone else’s fault. Entitlement mindset. A product of FED central bank easy money. All he knows how to do well is spend other people’s money.
“Problem is journos are under constant pressure to get max clicks & earn advertising dollars or get fired. Tricky situation, as Tesla doesn’t advertise, but fossil fuel companies & gas/diesel car companies are among world’s biggest advertisers..” ~ Elon Musk
This tweet made me laugh. MSM companies are completely biased toward the climate change political propaganda. Why would they publish Green “Chicken Little” articles on a daily basis if they feared retribution from the fossil fuel and traditional car companies?
At least he’s smart enough to realize journalists are corrupt in general. That’s a start….
It would be good for the entire world to realise the fake news and endless BS and lies exist because it’s advertisement-sales driven. If Elon fans generally recognise this fact too, then it can’t be a bad thing for us all.
Take away the add sales and most of the BS on the internet would evaporate. BS ‘content’ for content’s sake is not worth it, when it’s all likely to be fake garbage. The more add space sold, the more fake news and lies we get. If you want the lies and manipulation to be wound back again, strangle the add sales revenues flowing to ‘content’ providers, and to google and friends.
We’ll have less junk-internet, and more quality internet, for a more balanced and aware population, and a less messed up and depressed younger-generation.
“endless BS and lies exist because it’s advertisement-sales driven”
Which ads?
Ads for solar panels? Ads for wind turbines?
Ads for the Hyperloop?
Constant doom and gloom from (Failed predictions in) Globull Warming articles certainly don’t cause the younger generation to be “messed up and depressed” /sarc
How does Tesla even exist in the business world?
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/financials?p=TSLA
It doesn’t; it exists in the Silicon Valley world, where you can lose billions of dollars but as long as you are growing customer base, it doesn’t matter. Look at Uber, Snapchat, and many other companies who lose billions a year but still get more investments/stock sales.
SV money is fantasy money…
I don’t mind repeating it. Musk seems to be highly leveraged, his board has said “no more”, with the limit at 25%. Musk suddenly turned defensive on conference calls –with stock analysts!!!
Toyota could not make money operating the Fremont plant making ordinary cars. Costs in California are too high. Tesla won’t be able to charge (not intended pun) enough on the cars to make any money. I doubt that the company will survive the next bear market. Taking out the last low on the chart will prompt the end of the promotion.
Bob Hoye ( not long or short the stock)
Musk has drunk whatever kool aid you drink to build any business in California. He may have doomed Space X by deciding to build his BFR rocket in the L.A. area. It blows this conservative mind that he didn’t simply keep rocket construction in Texas where there is space for testing and launching from their own base at a fraction of what construction in California will cost.
The definition of a promotion from the old and speculative Vancouver Stock Exchange is instructive. For TSLA as well as the climate story:
“In the beginning, the promoter has the vision and the public has the money.
At the end of the promotion, the public has the vision and the promoter has the money.”
Musk has had the use of some $5 billion of taxpayers’ money and the climate promotion has grafted 100s of billions of dollars of taxes.
To look at the numbers, TSLA closed the week at 279 and the hard-hit down to 244 in April is the key support level.
Off topic – a conspiracy? – What about Google continuously sending communications from my Republican congressional representative, Doug Lamalfa, to the spam file. Every time that occurs, I select not spam, yet future emails happen to end up in the spam file again and again.
Chad, like the infiltration of the cultural marxism, it’s not a conspiracy. It’s right out in the open in plain sight.
Are these emails considered spam by other email services?
Do they include misleading links?
I wouldn’t have thought that much-disparaged empirical data in this post normal world would be so in the case of a car company that cant seem to turn out their cars. It just is. You have a big problem and it’s a shortcoming in your ramp up.
It aint big oil to blame and it is newsworthy. Believe it that all of the “progressive” mainstream media is actually in your corner. We see this with the climatalarmforce who have this same media in their pocket and yet they complain that they are failing because skeptics get all the good press!!
You had an opportunity to get in early on one of your critical material supplies but didnt do the deal (like the rest of the EV companies from the Big Car sector have done as a matter 9f course). Suddenly you are to be the worlds largest customer for lithium, cobalt, specialized computer units and parts…. and ‘suddenly’ isnt a good thing in any large manufacturing enterprise. That you also have stubborn glitches in the actual assemly line is the same kind of problem.
There is a is a steep learning curve in going from hand crafted niche cars, or cookies even, to mass produced international market supplier. Hubris prevented you from getting all the ducks in a row well in advance.
Did you have an outside engineering firm do your feasibility study. If not, better back up and do that or it could become a duct tape and bailing wire op.
Surprisingly I agree with Musk.
Our media is pathetic,lying by omission being the least of their sins.
As anyone who has been participant in a “news making incident”can testify,what shows up on the TV or printed page did not happen there.
These last few decades the reporters have become so certain of their narrative that they do not even bother to attempt to appear objective.
“Facts?. We don’t need no stinking facts”.
Canadians are so used to the media telling us what we “think” that we just ignore them.
Our media outlets are all in financial decline and sucking up to the weakminded politicians for taxpayer support.
Of course for Eldon and his taxpayer subsidized empire, the transition from being tongue bathed by these presstitutes as a saviour of the planet, to being called a bankrupt business and failed visionary,whose product incinerates its consumers..
That has to hurt, the poor boy has had such a good run.
Electric Good…Gasoline Bad.
You cannot “dumb down” a story more than this.
‘I don’t agree with Elon Musk’s assertion that journalists just want to attract big oil advertising money.’
Me neither. That would require them to think they work for a business. With P&L.
‘I think most journalists want to do the right thing, even if many of them are are hopelessly biased on some subjects.’
NFW. They are clueless tools of the Cultural Marxists.
Elon. one of your silly self-driven cars crashed into a fire truck yesterday.
Fix your stupid inventions, willya? I have no sympathy for someone who pumps a faulty product and whines about the media later on. Grow up.
Isn’t that the crux of the matter, a decent concept being pushed too fast into an uncertain market.
But the car can see these obstacles in the way. It just doesn’t know how to react!
The problem was that the sensor system for the SDV Tesla did not acknowledge the firetruck when the car in front of it changed lanes. It simply picked up speed and smashed the firetruck, and the test driver didn’t react, either. Must have been on his phone or something.
Well… looking on the bright side.
It looks like large number of relatively rich liberal eco-terrorist are likely going to be dealing with more smashed dreams and short a significant amount of cash… just at the point progressives will need cash for the mid-term elections.
Musk is just mad that he can’t afford to advertise the way normal companies do. He should be grateful for the free advertising which CNBC often throws his way. Although some of that has been a bit negative recently.
Why advertise? He is a master of subsidies. He knows that advertising to harvest more subsidies is a bad business plan.
Who in the world got more free press for its products than Elon Musk?
Donald Trump by a long shot. Hip hip hurrah!
Musk said distrust of journalists was responsible for President Donald Trump’s election.
Well, it had a distinct effect on my vote.
My local Westfields shopping centre has had a Tesla Model X and a Model S near centre stage for the last two months. Having plenty of time to look at them whilst my wife shopped I was appalled at the poor builds (I was in the automotive industry for ten years). On my asking why no spare wheels. The salesmen told me that I would have excellent roadside assist in event of a puncture. In the interior of Australia? (70% of Australia is semi-arid or desert and is often met around 200 kilometres from the coast). They had no answer when I asked them why they were displaying vehicles costing around a quarter of a million Australian dollars in a low socio- economic area with the shopping carpark full of cars costing about $AUD25,000. They also said there was no accompanying toolkit in the cars.
Watching Elon Musk and Tesla burn and crash will be rewardingly entertaining.
Hahahaha! Most just want to do the right thing.
Good one, Mr. Worrall!
Problem is, who defines what’s “right?”
Eric
” … I don’t agree with Elon Musk’s assertion that journalists just want to attract big oil advertising money. … ”
That’s not what Musk said Eric, he said this:
” … Problem is journos are under constant pressure to get max clicks & earn advertising dollars or get fired. … ”
Which I agree with, as he’s right about that over-riding imperative.
Plus this is what we used to call (and recognise as) “cutting-down the tall poppies”, as any one who got too sucessful must be slashed down.
I’m not sure while people with no skin in the game (are not Tesla investors) care if Tesla makes money or not. Why does it matter to them if it is a success or crashes and burns? Don’t think electric cars have a bright future? Fine, then sit back and watch the show. But rooting for Tesla to fail just seems dumb to me.
The story of Tesla is a story, like a Hollywood show. It’s a big illusion. But there is real money invested in it, and a lot of it comes from people who never choose to buy Tesla (bonds, shares or products).
If you are in a properly managed fund, your individual exposure should be very small; that’s the purpose of such funds. And if Tesla makes you nervous, you have no business being in the type of aggressive funds that would include a stock like Tesla. None of mine do.
“If you are in a properly managed fund, your individual exposure should be very small; that’s the purpose of such funds”
Much more people are “exposed” than those who have shares of Tesla.
Those who made a down payment for a future car that may never exist, for example…
Some people refuse to accept that they failed on their own merits (or lack thereof).
1) A certain Austrian corporal claimed that Germany should’ve won World War 1 but was “stabbed in the back…” by you know who.
2) Hillary claimed that she should’ve won, but was “stabbed in the back” by Comey, Russia, Wikileaks, racists, misogynists, and a whole “basket of deplorables”.
3) Tesla is burning money at ridiculous amounts, notwithstanding that they are subsidized directly and indirectly by various federal and state/provincial governments. Musk blames the media. The media are irrelavant. Tesla production cannot keep up with current demand. Even if the media were fawning all over them, Tesla would not be able to manufacture any extra cars beyond current levels, and hence would not be booking any additional revenue. This is totally different from GM, oil companies, and the rest of the real world of business, where you have more production capacity than customers, and have to actually advertise and get good PR to convince people to buy more of your product.