Misleading in that, when you hear layoffs, you immediately think "financial trouble" because that's usually the context that you hear about layoffs.
These articles you hear about Tesla are sometimes factual, but they're not published because they're factual. They're published to do damage and affect stock prices in a way that make specific people rich. It's the equivalent of playing poker, and affecting your neighbor's hand by distracting the dealer.
Every week there's a god damn article about Elon's "fall from grace" (what?) or about how he's trying to prevent unionization (you mean the fake unions that Ford has been trying to start, but workers aren't interested in?) or about subsidies (which are still a fraction of oil subsidies).
As a result, he made the mistake of criticizing the ethics of the media. So start expecting him to get the Gamer-gate treatment as the media pile on him even harder than before with fabricated news.
Every time I read a negative piece about Elon or Tesla, I worry "oh shit, is this the one?" and I look into the article and it's absolute bullshit. At this point, even if I read an article and it appears to be factual, I'd say the burden of proof is on the naysayers, and not on Musk or Tesla, given past performance.