Yahoo Finance Elon Musk calls on Trump playbook with Twitter broadside at media critics
Amid criticism of his electronic car maker Tesla, Elon Musk has decided to shoot the messenger with the howitzer of his billions.
It’s a rather popular tactic in the era of Donald Trump with his rants about “fake news”.
In taking to Twitter to vent his spleen, Mr Musk called upon US President's favoured playbook.
His starter for ten: “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.”
Ouch!
Then there was: “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.”
Double Ouch!
And so: “Going to create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication. Thinking of calling it Pravda.”
Eeep!
Oh, and he addressed people likening him to the President: “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.”
Now that really hurts.
At this rate our Elon will be at the head of the shortlist to replace the US Commerce Secretary the next time Mr Trump decides to say “you’re fired” to the incumbent.
Of course, you can crush Mr Musk’s base case quicker than a Tesla in a compactor. You don’t even need to be a flag waving defender of the media’s coverage of him to do it.
Simply type the name of Volkswagen, one those gas/diesel car companies that spends a lot of money on advertising, and “emissions scandal” into Google. Or how about “Toyota” and “emissions control”.
The irony is it’s the media’s obsessive interest in him, and Tesla, that prevents the company from needing to advertise like those two do. It’s saved him a bunch of money through granting him endless free publicity (guilty as charged m’lud). And don’t they say all publicity is good publicity?
Ultimately, trying to hold a sensible debate with or about Mr Musk is hardly worth the effort. It isn’t going to sway him from his purpose, which is to divert attention from the issues his critics have been raising.
And he can fund this “Pravda”, or whatever he decides to call it, with a rounding error after his shareholders voted in favour of handing him a $2.6bn pay package and maybe he will. Like Mr Trump he has a legion of admirers who will brook no criticism of him so it might get enough clicks to make him some money.
Were I among his investors, however, I might be inclined, to suggest that he justify his outsize remuneration package by spending a bit less time on Twitter railing at his critics, and a bit more time on making Tesla fly.
But that’s just me.
