As promised in last week’s #Pravduh about #Tesla report, here is a breakdown of all the publishers we track and how their coverage has changed over the past 3 months. We were also planning to release a breakdown of the authors. However, since this article is already quite long, we decided to postpone that till next week.
The New York Times has described the Tesla factory in Fremont as a hotbed of racism, but its story misses the point completely.
A great deal of attention has been recently placed on the conflict between Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding certain tweets by the CEO of Tesla. What is not clear to many, however, is the extraordinary number of potential securities violations that are happening regularly with regards to Tesla’s stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) that are the work of individuals opposing Tesla’s success. It’s fair to say that a war is presently underway between Tesla and its enemies.
Last week included record-shattering production and delivery numbers from Tesla and thus a dramatic shift in the US automotive market. The American-made Model 3 became the 4th highest selling car in the United States and was for the second month in a row the highest grossing car in the United States. It was the only car in the top 7 produced by an American car company. Furthermore, the Model 3 totally demolished the competition in the luxury car market and Tesla as a whole was the top selling luxury vehicle brand in the country. The week also included an SEC lawsuit regarding some of Elon’s tweets and a settlement regarding that lawsuit. How did the headlines match up with that news and more? Read on to find out.
Tesla’s vehicles are the three top-selling EVs in the US market. Model S has been consistently outselling every competing large luxury sedan for years, and it appears as if Model 3 will similarly dominate the small sedan segment. The company continues merrily producing 5,000 Model 3s per week, and teardowns by two sets of auto industry experts (Munro & Associates and a group commissioned by German automakers) have concluded that the new EV should deliver a healthy profit margin.
I’ve been curious lately — how has Tesla coverage in the mainstream media evolved over time? Has Tesla coverage always been batshit crazy? Or is that a relatively new thing?
Last week, I wrote about dramatically negative press sentiment about Tesla that was prevalent 10 years ago. The company was sure to die any day, according to smart dudes at The Truth About Cars, the New York Times, and most outlets in between.
The New York Times interview of Elon Musk released late in the night of August 16, 2018, clobbered Tesla’s stock price the next day, resulting in a fall of more than $30 a share by the end of Friday’s after-market trading and a single-day transfer of wealth of over a billion dollars from Tesla’s investors to the stock’s short sellers.
The New York Times has decided that, with Elon Musk and Tesla, yellow journalism is not below its standards. I have a few thoughts on that.
I just published a long piece on why I think Tesla CEO Elon Musk was so wrong in his reactionary, broad-brushed response to certain media coverage. But as a great reminder of what has been raising his blood pressure for months or years, the NYTimes coverage regurgitated the narratives that have pushed Elon over the edge — without putting them in proper context. Ugh. Do you have to do such a poor job responding to his criticisms when we need to convince Sir Elon to keep away from generic media bashing?
The New York Times, which now bills itself as the purveyor of “truth,” decided perhaps it had too much of a liberal bias, so it went out and secured the services of a former Wall Street Journal editorial writer named Bret Stephens.
