Elon Musk, Tesla CEO
When an inventor brings in a new type of product into the world, it can be understandable he would feel protective of this creation. This is exactly what it seems Elon Musk is guilty of as he launched an attack campaign on Twitter against a New York Times reporter who tested his latest car, the Tesla Model S. This latest electric car is set to revolutionize the world of automotive thanks to a brand new design, which Musk hopes will shake the industry. But things went bad when that reporter went to the company in order to test the new car. Unfortunately, his news article was not very favorable towards the car. He reported, for example, that the range this vehicle could cover was not what Tesla claimed.
Tesla Model S
But the Elon Musk himself fired off the first salvo on his Twitter account saying that "the article about Tesla in cold is fake". Needless to say, this launched a series of back and forth remarks, claiming that the reporter wasn’t told certain key details, and Musk claiming that he had logs to proved the figures given in the NYT were false. The whole ordeal lasted several days with neither side backing off.
This isn’t the first time Musk goes after a media critic, with his company suing car show Top Gear for misrepresenting the truth about Tesla in one of their earlier shows. The claim was recently dismissed in UK court. Regardless of who is right, this kind of very public back and forth is not good for the company image, and so far, Tesla stock is going down.
