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Comment by lelandfe | Hacker News Reader

> Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It disbanded its media relations department in 2020

I’m veering off topic here (much like a bad autopilot, bazinga), but why would a company possibly want to disband this?

It's a bit of nonsense put out by Musk. Whether there's a "Media relations department" is immaterial. That's not actually a thing that companies have to have. You could call it marketing, light touch sales, corporate communications. When people write articles they ask for comment from the company. Normal companies either comment or don't comment. Tesla is way smarter though - they've come up with a PR strategy (definitely not something that would in any way be described as media relations) to say "Oh it's not that we're not commenting on this article about us cheating on safety tests. It's just that we don't do PR". Apparently some people fall for this, forgetting that when does release information to the media when it's autopilot kills someone. Sorry, it didn't kill anyone, Tesla says it disengaged before the crash, oh hold on hang on, I thought you guys didn't have a media relations deparment....oh.

Elon thinks PR is "manipulating the press" and that Tesla is better off spending their time and energy on product development.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2021/06/07/...

I wonder whether, if every hour he is on Twitter was rather spent on FSD, could they have solved by now?

I have to guess that his time on twitter was a deliberate attempt to use social media to manipulate the stock price and he got good at it.

not they aren't fungible

He's not an AI expert, he's a hustler. Time spent on twitter is time not spent pestering people doing the actual work.

Manipulating the press is too out of fashion for Elon. He manipulates people directly from tweeter. No need for intermediates.

Why do they need a media relations department? Their order backlog stretches into 2023.

Media outlets put this disclaimer on practically every Tesla article because the media in the US are clearly butthurt that Tesla doesn't need (or want) them. Maybe we should be questioning our underlying assumptions of why a company should "need" a media relations department?

> Media outlets put this disclaimer on practically every Tesla article because the media in the US are clearly butthurt that Tesla doesn't need (or want) them.

No, they do it because they need to explain why almost every article on a Tesla issue has zero response from Tesla. Just like the "We reached out to Company but had not received a response before going to press."

Attempting to contact a media department that does not exist is a sisyphean task.

One wonders why news outlets attempt to contact a media department that does not exist, and that they know does not exist.

Perchance it is so that they can remind the reader that the media department at Tesla does not exist?!?

I'm not sure I agree with your logic. A good journalist does their due diligence, which includes giving the company an opportunity to respond.

Seriously? We all know Tesla doesn't have a media relations department. As such we all know they don't respond to media requests. You still consider it "due diligence" to ask questions of a nonexistent department?

When it suits their agenda, it seems they are quite happy to make statements.

I wonder who issues those statements, absent a media department?

A company can respond without a "media department" or whatever.

A media relations department is a savvy thing to have in order to keep your brand’s reputation healthy. An order backlog stretching into 2023 doesn’t mean much for the next decade of Tesla. Public opinion is important for sales. I’m not going to claim to speak for the car-buying masses, but my impression of Tesla (false marketing claims, shoddy workmanship, bad working conditions, etc) is bad - you’d think a competently run company would want to try to shift that narrative.

Your impression of Tesla is obviously not shared by the masses, or the masses wouldn’t continue buying Tesla vehicles in mass quantities.

Consumer Reports agrees: Tesla is the least reliable American car, by maintenance cost.

Reports are that if anything substantial needs fixing , it it cheaper to discard the car and buy another one used.

What the US public chooses to buy is, evidently, easily manipulated. Consumer reports, less so.

...and again... the masses disagree. Tesla will sell 1.5 million cars this year and they have a backlog of 8 months.

Agreed, people are sheep, and will pay through the nose for crap they are taught carries some sort of cultural cachet. See also Apple products, and various handbags.

> Media outlets put this disclaimer on practically every Tesla article because the media in the US are clearly butthurt that Tesla doesn't need (or want) them.

Media will typically indicate whether there was a response, no response, or a 'no comment'. Why would they not also indicate that there was nobody made available for them to ask?

They just use Twitter

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