Comments:"Elon Musk and How Not to Handle a PR Crisis"
Steve Waquad,Lesley Nash,Laure Thibodeau,Mike Bayer,Shereen Hanafi,Errin Cole,Chris McGraw,Simon Gibbons,linda abi ghanem and Stuart Holmes like this
John Davison Elon def did the right thing to defend himself and Tesla in a proactive fashion using all the best of communication technology. I think Nicholas belongs right there with the NYT on this one, just a bunch of fluff and dis-information passed off as knowledge.20s
Matt Ryan I disagree with your position Nicholas. Elon truly believes in his product and it shows. If he rolled over or responded casually no one would have focused on anything other than the car not working properly. At least by vehemently denying the allegations there is doubt about the initial article. Bottom line, Tesla was not hurt by this one bit, if anything they got a ton of publicity for Tesla.22s
Andrei Warkentin Of course, you know better because you have at least 10% of Musk's life experience and forsight? Or because you were co-pilot to Broder? So you have a biased reporter and a CEO who called our the bluff, and now a third party (CNN), confirming that Broder should be working instead for the National Enquirer. Where do your squawks fit into this?2m
Craig Shields Tesla's data completely refutes Broder's story. If I'm less likely to buy something, it's the New York Times.2m
Brian Kleinhaus Old saying, hard to pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.2m
James Greenhill I disagree with most of this.4m
Aniekan Okono You are biased5m
James Otis, EMBA Have to agree with Christopher C. Broder is looking more like a reporter who twisted the facts to fit the story he wanted to tell.5m
Tom Ricketts No score win to Tesla / Elon Musk - the story has gained huge attention that it didn't have, has publicised Tesla's increased investment in charging stations, has highlighted the existence of positive press about the Tesla S. Broder will have convinced his fellow naysayers that electric cars will never amount to anything but won't have won any converts. Elon Musk has made Broder look foolish - in any argument where the hard data is on one side and the journalist is on the other, the journalist has lost - which won't have won him many (if any) converts, but will be music to the ears of supporters. Net effect, lots of free publicity and social media traction for Elon Musk & Tesla ... no score win!7m
Christopher Courtney i think that the public sees Broder as either an idiot or a liar, most of the dialog I have read online has been very pro Tesla and this incident has put the New York Times in a very bad light...9m
Alexander Bosika Nicholas, not on your side here whatsoever. The point is, the media is spending far more time poo-pooing technologies where their time has come...so we go back on the merry-go-round of status quo with a carbon-based system. Let's not kid ourselves. For every negative review, the hope is that the meek and the "sitting on the fence" type won't take the risk. Instead of re-envisioning our future that is more strategic, more responsible and less of a burden on the entire ecosystem of Mother Gaia, we still to old ways of thinking simply because it is easier! We forget things like the "deep water" drilling spills that have caused major damage. If it was so easy and plentiful, we go for the hard, deep water stuff. Uhuh. This is an "arms race" to speed of thought and forward-thinking. I am pro-business, pro-environment and pro-technology. You don't do it simply because it is easier to do it, you do it because it is the right thing to do because you see the future path. No point in living in denial about carbon-based energy models. Oddly, oil companies miss the classic Harvard article called Marketing Myopia. They ACT like OIL COMPANIES, not "ENERGY" companies but they spend millions in PR campaigns about "difficult issues" while asking the public what to do. For our nascent technology types, we know where we want things to go but for the mass consumer, it is about a real choice on fuel mileage. I am truly sorry that the U.S. interstate system was built for carbon transportation but that is a relic and a by-product of rapid 20th century industrialization with a poor sense of the future. Even the U.S. military is aware of their massive footprint needs when it comes to energy and is spending a lot of research in synthetic fuel-based solutions and other alternatives. Yet, the private sector, weary and afraid of the cost in R&D and "ROI" (understandably so, we have shareholders to speak to!) forget a few things along the way. Good products, ingenuity, innovation, pride, and the customer. I will spend all my days promoting Tesla, Leaf and every other company that is willing to go after the BIG 3 Dino's for innovation and progress. Oddly, China just snapped up a huge chunk a third of the "world's SOLAR panels". Do you think they used Dick Cheney as their "energy" adviser? Right. China is thinking about ITS future...the WEST is not.10m
Sean Roberts Nicolas, are you following the same information the rest of the world is following? Can you actually read data from charts. The only correct statement that Broder made was the battery was drained. Broders credibility, which was low, is even lower now. I suggest Nick that you take some marketing classes and fill in with some journalism...It is Mr. Musk10m
Julie Ankenbrandt I managed PR for Elon from the early days of his second startup (at X.com before we acquired Confinity and the PayPal brand, through sale of the company to eBay) -- and your post makes me embarrassed for you. The beating you're taking in the comments here are probably enough to remind you that it's a mistake to pretend or preach absolutes in this game, and that it's a fool's errand to expect Elon to play by the boring rules created by others or those came before. We should all be so fearless and passionate about what we build.10m
Eric Walker I totally disagree with the author here as well. I, for one, am glad to see Elon take on Broder with this. And no, I don't think Broder is winning at all on this dispute. CNN ran the same route and made it without any issues. I just think that Broder got busted by not knowing all the data was being logged and had to come up with something to try to explain himself out of it. No go.10m
Nicholas Orlowski "How NOT to write a kiss-up journo-phylic article"11m
Glenn R. Dinetz Why is any executive Tweeting? This is an incredibly unnecessary technology taking up yet more time to manage and creating more problems for people than it's worth. For those of you old enough to remember John Belushi in Animal House, the scene where the devil is on John's shoulder would have loved to have Twitter.12m
Chris Eigner Why is this a failure again? Not all communication has to be conflict free. Are we so conflict averse that we have to have PR to mediate all communication in/out of a company? It generated good debate. It brought the conversation of electric vehicles to the public. More stringent tests will be done. There will be follow up stories. More pageviews. And the truth will come to light. I don't see failure anywhere.12m