Musk channels Caesar, Soviet media in tweets
Elon Musk, barely a month after his behavior on an earnings call shook investor confidence, hit out on Twitter with a series of combative posts this week, leaving many scratching their heads at best and prompting scrutiny from U.S. labor regulators at worst.
The CEO of Tesla, which is burning cash and struggling to overcome production issues for its mass-market electric Model 3, heaped scorn on media outlets over critical news reporting as well as alluding to picking random dates to unveil new vehicles.
“For some reason, this is the best I’ve felt in a while,” Musk, who has built a showman rep-
utation partly through his frank exchanges on social media, tweeted early Thursday, after his comments set off a storm of responses.
Among the items mentioned in his tweets:
⏩ The unveil date of the Model Y was chosen at random for March 15 “because the Ides of March sounded good.”
⏩ He plans a website to rate media credibility possibly called Pravda, the name of the Soviet Union’s official newspaper. Actually, the California Secretary of State’s website shows a Pravda Corp. was registered in October in Delaware. The filing agent and the address listed — 216 Park Road, Burlingame — are identical to the name and location used for at least two other Musk entities: brain-computer interface startup Neuralink Corp. and the tunnel-digging Boring Co.
⏩ Musk blamed oil companies and traditional automakers for critical news coverage, saying they have more clout than Tesla because of their advertising budgets.
⏩ Tesla workers who unionize might lose employee stock options — an idea that could draw scrutiny from U.S. labor regulators.
Musk, 46, has previously called on true believers to help him overcome the “haters” who question his company’s ability to usher in an electric-vehicle age on an ambitious timetable. His recent performance on an earnings call to discuss his company’s quarterly business suggested a leader under pressure. He ridiculed representatives of Wall Street’s biggest banks asking for more details
on how Tesla would meet promises to build more Model 3 sedans and generate cash in the second half of the year.
His latest public comments reveal his mood is still feisty.
For the Model Y, Musk explained he “made up” the date to introduce the Model Y crossover on March 15, before locking it in as the official date. The Ides of March corresponds to March 15 on the Roman calendar and is infamous as the date of Julius Caesar’s murder in 44 B.C.
Earlier, he said he was set to “create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score of each journalist, editor & publication,” adding: “Thinking of calling it Pravda.” The name means truth in Russian.
He also attacked the United Auto Workers union, which is trying to organize workers at Tesla’s plant in Fremont.
“Why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing?” he said about workers at the plant.
The comment could draw scrutiny from the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that investigates allegations of unfair labor practices. Wilma Liebman, who headed the agency during the Obama administration and has done legal work for the UAW, said she interpreted that as a warning the company would take away workers’ stock options if they succeeded in organizing the factory.