Banned by Tesla
medium.com
medium.com
> Starting a 7:00pm event at 8:50pm is simply unacceptable
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> (even though the invitation insisted that everybody be at the venue by 7:30pm sharp).
So did it start at 7:00 pm or 7:30 pm?
That error notwithstanding, if this turns out to be true it seems pretty petty to cancel his preorder out of spite. In general I take a negative view of companies that "punish" their customers for writing negative reviews or comments. Makes me wonder if Tesla will let journalists review their vehicles fairly in the future.
Instead of this turning into a negative PR event, they could have turned this into a positive. Just call the guy, apologise for the late start, and invite him in to view the vehicle in a private showing. No doubt he would write an article either on the apology OR on the vehicle, and it is a net gain to Tesla's PR (or worst case he writes no article, and you still don't wind up with the negative PR we see here).
Instead now we have a company which may punish journalists and critics.
I mean, the VC wrote his original post as a direct personal attack and then distributed it in public on a widely-read platform. That's pretty nuclear. In ascending order of severity he could have:
- Contacted Tesla directly
- Written to Elon Musk directly, privately
- Written a blog post about his crappy experience at the event
- Tweeted Elon with a link to his blog post
All of which might have made him feel better about wasting his evening and maybe got him some compensation (jumping a few places in the waitlist, or something) while not being actually offensive.
Honest to god, some people are insufferable blowhards. Sure, the event started late, sure Elon might have acknowledged that, but if he thinks that (a) any of this matters enough to write TWO articles about and (b) that anyone really cares what he thinks, he's deluding himself. Moreover, he just looks like a complete fool for posting this kind of garbage and expecting a positive response.
Edit: I think I was right. Here's the direct quote from first paragraph: I also hear that you are not comfortable having me own a Tesla car and have cancelled my order for a Tesla Model X. Maybe you read a phantom "I" between 'and' and 'have'?
The network of Silicon Valley's elite is weird.
Is that even legal?
In general, cancelling and refunding orders is legal; there are cases where it is not legal (e.g., where it is done to implement a policy of discrimination on a legally-protected basis in something which is legally considered a public accommodation), but in general its perfectly legal.
I love how you twist facts to make it sound like the event didn't start an hour and a half late.
I'm also not saying it was right for Tesla to ban him, that was shitty, but getting so angry over a late start and ranting about it in a blog post directed at Elon also wasn't a great choice.
I don't really have sympathy for anyone who thinks having to wait a little bit is grounds for someone else to be "ashamed" and to write TWO blog posts complaining about it.
He's a VC so he's used to people treating him like a king. He gets mildly inconvenienced one time and suddenly that's everyone else's problem? Nah, screw him. I would have done the same thing in Musk's shoes.