Elon Musk is not a conventional CEO.
And he doesn’t run Tesla in a conventional way.
In a previous video, I mentioned that Tesla doesn’t advertise in a world where competitors
spend billions of dollars on commercials.
Tesla also doesn't have a Public Relations team in North America.
That’s unheard of for a major corporation.
It means Tesla no longer reaches out to or even responds to the media which is why in
a lot of articles you read about Tesla, you’ll see something like this:
“Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.”
Usually, corporations have a PR team to send positive news out to the media or to respond
to their questions.
When things go wrong, leaders depend on their PR professionals to spin the message to mitigate
any damage.
But at Tesla, that hasn’t really been the case since 2019.
Keely Sulprizio was the last person to officially be in charge of global PR and communications
at Tesla.
She left the automaker in December 2019 to join Impossible Foods.
Nearly every other member of Tesla’s PR team reportedly left or moved to another position
within the company.
Tesla does have a small communications presence in Europe
but not a global public relations department.
The big question is: why?
CEO Elon Musk has had some pretty harsh things to say about the press.
He believes they treat Tesla unfairly and once tweeted:
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.
For example, he called out the media for their coverage of a Tesla collision in autopilot
mode that made headlines around the world.
He responded by saying:
It’s super messed up that a Tesla crash resulting in a broken ankle is front-page
news.
In his view, what was actually amazing was that the Model S hit a fire truck at 60 miles
an hour and the driver ONLY broke an ankle.
He was also frustrated at media coverage of the much-hyped Battery Day event in September
2020 where Tesla unveiled it will manufacture its own tabless batteries to improve range
and power, making a $25,000 car possible in the future.
Several outlets pointed out there was disappointment over a lack of an actual battery.
Here’s what Musk said when he appeared on Kara Swisher’s podcast Sway.
The press coverage of this event of sad.
Okay, tell me why.
Most of the press takeaway was...
No battery.
A sad reflection of their understanding, really.
However, at the same time, journalists were reportedly not allowed at the event and weren’t
able to ask questions.
They had to watch it remotely via Tesla’s live stream along with everyone else.
The way Musk sees it, there is negative coverage of Tesla because “journalists are under
constant pressure to get maximum clicks and earn advertising dollars”.
He even suggested big oil is behind the negative coverage since they are “among the world’s
biggest advertisers”.
He’s flirted with the idea of creating a website where people can rate the credibility
of journalists and their news outlets which he thought about calling Pravda - the Russian
word for “truth”.
Nothing came of that.
Since dissolving the PR department, Musk serves as the PR department.
Much of his communication comes in the form of tweets to his 58.5 million followers where
he responds to fans, posts news about his company, and many memes these days, it seems.
He hasn’t embraced ALL social media, deleting the Facebook pages of both Tesla and SpaceX
a few years ago and calling the social media platform “lame”.
Musk does do the occasional interview with the media - he hasn’t completely cut them
off.
Some argue he really should get a team behind him.
Forbes made a pros and cons list, which, among other things, pointed out a communications
wing could “prevent Musk from saying things that could hurt the brand”.
Besides the pot-smoking on Joe Rogan’s podcast, or his tweet about considering taking
Tesla private at $420 a share that got him into trouble with the SEC, Musk has bragged
that Tesla cars would be able to drive themselves anywhere, under any conditions by the end
of 2021.
In fact, he’s said for years that Tesla is on the verge of Level 5 autonomy in which
no human interaction is needed whatsoever.
However, a public record obtained by the transparency advocacy group PlainSite earlier this year
found that wasn’t the case.
This memo from the California Department of Motor Vehicles notes, “Elon’s tweet does
not match engineering reality per CJ.”
That’s CJ Moore, director of autopilot software at Tesla who had a conversation with the department
in March.
The memo went on to explain that “Tesla indicated that Elon is extrapolating on the
rates of improvement when speaking about L5 capabilities” but notes at the time of the
meeting, Tesla was at Level 2.
Musk is known for his optimism, or as others might suggest, his tendency to exaggerate.
But none of this appears to be hurting sales.
Tesla is selling cars as fast as they make’em.
In the second quarter of 2021, it produced over 206,000 Model 3s and Model Ys and delivered
nearly as many.
The company has said it’s especially encouraged by the popularity of the Model Y in China
where Tesla has been expanding rapidly.
And because of that expansion, someone asked on Twitter whether a PR department may be
in the cards in the future.
To which Musk responded:
“Other companies spend money on advertising & manipulating public opinion, Tesla focuses
on the product.
I trust the people.”
Musk will be in the history books for making electric vehicles cool, fast, and perhaps
one day, affordable for the masses.
Regardless of whether Tesla has a PR department or not, Musk always finds a way to make the
news.
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For Newsthink, I’m Cindy Pom.