I don't think journalists' accuracy is what he is obsessed with. This was a single PR battle and while Elon is an admirable engineer, he is proving he is an equally good marketer.
You are entitled to your own opinion. My opinion is that I am not alone in being turned off by Musk. I no longer desire to buy a product from a company he operates. As an astute friend of mine who is both a theoretically trained scientist and active entrepreneur wrote as a comment on the New York Times public editor piece (on my Facebook wall), "Even if you completely accept Elon Musk's analysis, the bottom line is that owning this car is very expensive and a big pain in the tookus." If I spend that much money on what one of my law school classmates once called a "penis car," I don't want the car leaving me feeling like a schmuck or the car company's president acting like a schmuck in public.
I don't know if declaring a concession when there wasn't one is good marketing. I can almost guarantee this post is going to blow up in his face. Playing fast and loose with the truth in an argument based on the whether the other party told the truth? Press is going to love this response and tear him to pieces.
"Press is going to love this response and tear him to pieces."
Agree. As the saying goes don't pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Journalists probably stick together and have each others back more than they don't. Not to mention that they could very well be jealous of Musk's fame and fortune as well.
In many people's eyes as well where there's smoke there is fire. For example if this story appeared on 60 Minutes even as fair and balanced it would not be good for Musk and Tesla. (Not the same situation of course but to anyone curious dig up "60 Minutes Audi" to see what happened to that brand.)
Mr. Musk is very good at marketing Tesla's poor performance in cold weather. He single-handedly streisanded the company's cold-weather battery problems. Before, only EV afficionados knew about the problem. Now, everyone does.
All he's managed to prove is that he should leave the marketing to the professionals and go back to whatever it is he does at Tesla.
good marketer? To me he seems childish and combative.
I understand he had beef with the original scathing review, but his own rebuttal should've been bulletproof. While it made some good points, it was also nitpicky and interpretive. I expect better from the public face of the silicon valley's vehicular prodigy.
'John Broder [...] made “few conclusions that are unassailable.”'
While, yes, the bit in quotation did appear in the piece, it was in the following:
"In the matter of the Tesla Model S and its now infamous test drive, there is still plenty to argue about and few conclusions that are unassailable."
I would deem that a "misquote", though if you insist it's a serious mischaracterization of the context of a quote or something, I'm not sure I'll argue too strenuously over the semantics.
You are entitled to your own opinion. My opinion is that I am not alone in being turned off by Musk. I no longer desire to buy a product from a company he operates. As an astute friend of mine who is both a theoretically trained scientist and active entrepreneur wrote as a comment on the New York Times public editor piece (on my Facebook wall), "Even if you completely accept Elon Musk's analysis, the bottom line is that owning this car is very expensive and a big pain in the tookus." If I spend that much money on what one of my law school classmates once called a "penis car," I don't want the car leaving me feeling like a schmuck or the car company's president acting like a schmuck in public.