If anything, getting in a very public fight with Musk may well be beneficial wrt brand recognition. Especially if he responds in his usual douchy way and it gets framed accordingly in the media.
It does. There are plenty of investors who want to see Musk's publicly traded companies run by "an adult" but they're outnumbered by the people who think that his lack of fucks to give is a greater positive to the company than the ire of the people he irritates is a negative.
This is fundamentally the same kind of calculation that brands make when deciding to public-ally sponsor things that people feel strongly about.
If enough high profile people took a stronger stance that might just be enough to make Musk see the light. I'm not going to hold my breath for that though.
Elon musk is a stiff defender of his company and its practices. He will go on the offensive just to protect the name, nevermind politeness and formality.
I don't think people have to pay for bad press against Musk: he made enough enemies of people in the press by being a total asshole to them that I'm sure they'll do it for free any chance they get.
I don't think personal fortune is anywhere near as significant of a motivation for Musk as the public image of his companies or their success. I have no doubt that he let negative headlines get under his skin, and that he wanted to fight back.
I don't think Musk is exactly struggling to maintain a big media profile. This story might keep him in the headlines more but it's hardly making him look good. Rather I'd say it seriously damages his reputation as a serious player. He looks more interested in sounding off on twitter and messing around. Following this mess if he approached you with an offer to buy your business how seriously would you want to take him?
PR-wise, this might actually be a pretty clever (partial) recovery from banning and threatening to sue Jack Sweeney. The world's second richest man legally going after a pimply college kid, after bragging about how he won't even ban his account due to his love of free speech is and looks just pathetic.
Baiting the establishment press like this and making the plebs vote on their fate is actually a pretty good distraction move and gives him an opportunity to climb down in a somewhat face-saving fashion (I'm doubtful he's crazy enough to go through with suing Jack Sweeney, but we'll see).
Of course this doesn't change the fact that Musk is an unprincipled and pampered hypocrite and could have handled this much better. A no-live-tracking policy would have offered very little real attack surface if it had been rolled out in a remotely competent fashion.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that this outburst makes it distinguishable from PR. Not that it's pleasant to see.
Elon Musk needs a serious figurative punch in the gut, to get back to the actual outlook of a collaborative problem solver and away from pumped up competitive douchebag. The world already had enough of those.
The bad press seems to be political pressure on Musk and advertisers, over special perks for journalists and politicians. If Musk were very media savvy, he could be playing up the controversy just to keep people talking about (and checking) Twitter, but I doubt it.
So on top of everything else, Musk has such anger management issues that he can't avoid being sued for libel and making a fool of himself in the media? You're not really helping your case.
Branding matters, as people do tend to buy the image almost as much as the capabilities.
Musk is inextricably tied to Teslas brand.
All good when he was ‘space Howard Hughes (pre-hypochondriac shut-in)’, since that brand resonated with people with money who were going for the ‘better future’ image.
Now his antics remind everyone of their asshole racist uncle that they can’t stand. Not a good brand association, as asshole racists uncles aren’t as popular with those with a lot of money.
Musk personally rubs some people the wrong way, and he puts himself out there as the only public face of Tesla. Part of it is a perception of arrogance, part of it is how he comes out guns blazing for any perceived slight of his company.
I don't know about you, but judging by what Elon says in his social media posts, I'm going to assume that the people who worked with Musk are poor judges of character. Or these same people happen to have a ton of TSLA stock or some other vested interest in Elon, so kissing his ass is good for their bottom line.
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