Among people closely following Tesla, it seems that the biggest topic of the past week has been biased and misleading coverage of Tesla, and electric vehicles or cleantech more generally, from major media outlets.
Tesla does a lot of things superbly in the world of communications. However, Tesla also has a lot of room for improvement, as some recent news about stores and the Model 3 shows.
I’m a huge fan of the media and high-quality journalism. The free press is a cornerstone of democracy, and much more. The largest media outlets in the world have the resources, passion, and expertise to do tremendous investigative reporting that is invaluable to society. But they are dropping the ball on Tesla, misleading consumers in a highly biased manner.
Negative media coverage is a fact of life for any company, large or small. However, as it does in so many areas, Tesla approaches this problem quite differently than most firms do. Conventional wisdom has long been that companies shouldn’t respond to attacks in the media, but Elon Musk never got that memo. He responds quickly, forcefully, and often colorfully.
