Elon Musk attacks press for negative coverage after a run of awkward stories

The Tesla boss's Twitter has become a way of attacking the media

Elon Musk during his presenation at the Tesla Powerpack Launch Event at Hornsdale Wind Farm on September 29, 2017 in Adelaide, Australia (Mark Brake/Getty Images)

Elon Musk has launched a blistering attack on the press, after a run of negative and embarrassing coverage.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss suggested that he will launch his own website for ranking the integrity of news sites and journalists. That would help protect against false coverage, which he claimed was the result of journalists' desire to please traditional car companies.

But it has been repeatedly pointed out that the attack came after a series of different negative articles focusing on Mr Musk and his companies. It has been alleged that Mr Musk intentionally discouraged his employees from organising in a union; Tesla has been the subject of negative articles that raise questions about the performance of its vehicles and its ability to actually manufacture them.

Some of the same criticism about union-busting has re-emerged after it became clear that Mr Musk was dating the singer Grimes. But she said that she had investigated those reports and found them to be "fake news", borrowing a phrase from Donald Trump.

It appears to be those often negative and embarrassing articles that prompted Mr Musk's latest run of tweets. He said that he was fed up with media coverage of him and that he would launch a website – named Pravda – aimed to counteract it by ranking the stories themselves.

The Tesla boss had initially suggested that journalists' coverage was motivated by a desire for clicks and that advertisers could tell them what to write. When it was pointed out that some of the most damaging reporting about Tesla has come from non-profit organisation Reveal, billionaire Mr Musk called the group "some rich kids in Berkeley who took their political science prof too seriously".

Mr Musk has long courted the press, encouraging media coverage with publicity stunts that have included selling personal flamethrowers to his fans.

That has been factored into Tesla's business plan. In a recent filing, it noted that it did not have to spend money on advertising since the company is discussed so much.

"Historically, we have been able to generate significant media coverage of our company and our vehicles, and we believe we will continue to do so," Tesla wrote. "To date, for vehicle sales, media coverage and word of mouth have been the primary drivers of our sales leads and have helped us achieve sales without traditional advertising and at relatively low marketing costs."

But the new run of tweets is far from the first time that he has objected to coverage and scrutiny of his companies.

Recently, for instance, Mr Musk decided during a call with financial analysts that he objected to "boring bonehead questions", when he was asked a difficult enquiry about the company's financial situation.

Instead, he told analysts they had to move on. During the same call, he refused to take questions from traditional analysts and investors and instead handed over to a fan on YouTube.

But the dismissed question about whether Tesla will need to borrow more money from its investors continues to dog Mr Musk and his company. The company's share price has dropped by 14 per cent since the beginning of the year, amid fears about his balance sheet.

It continued to drop the day after Mr Musk's new tweets about the media. Tesla shares were down by about 1 per cent over the day.

But the company's products have been criticised as well as its corporate situation. Questions have been raised over its self-driving system amid crashes and suggestions that other companies have overtaken its technology, and there has long been questions over whether Tesla will actually be able to make enough of its Model 3 to keep going.

Mr Musk has reacted negatively to some of that coverage. "It’s super messed up that a Tesla crash resulting in a broken ankle is front page news and the ~40,000 people who died in US auto accidents alone in past year get almost no coverage," he wrote on Twitter earlier this month.