Knowledge exhibits that Tesla has considerably ramped up its personal exterior communications over the previous couple of months as Elon Musk turns into extra controversial.

Final month, I wrote an op-ed titled “Tesla badly must convey again its PR departmen“‘ about why I feel the automaker must convey again its PR dept that it dissolved again in 2020.

My fundamental level was that since then, most of Tesla’s public communications have gone by means of Elon Musk who’s changing into an more and more controversial and polarizing character for many individuals, and the corporate would profit from extra strong direct communications with the general public.

Now Tesla has not reinstated its US or international PR workforce, no less than not but, however the automaker has actually considerably elevated its personal communications over the previous couple of months.

We seen that Tesla has been more and more tweeting about its merchandise recently. Tesla usually would solely tweet about new merchandise or options, however over the previous couple of months, the automaker has began to typically publish new threads that characteristic present merchandise and options.

For instance, Tesla posted an entire thread about its observe mode at this time:

This wasn’t ordinary for Tesla till a number of months in the past, so Electrek puzzled if it was simply in our heads or if the information really backed it up.

Positive sufficient, information exhibits that Tesla has massively ramped up its tweeting over the past three months:

Tesla has additionally ramped up its use of Instagram across the similar time. The automaker additionally recurrently makes use of Weibo, however that has at all times been the case as a unique workforce handles Chinese language communications.

Moreover, Tesla additionally ramped up its weblog posting effort. Earlier than September, Tesla had solely posted two weblog posts in 2022 – one to introduce observe mode in Plaid automobiles, and one to defend itself towards a California Division of Truthful Employment and Housing lawsuit.

However from September till this month, Tesla printed six weblog posts on its web site.

The timing of this alteration seems to match CEO Elon Musk changing into more and more controversial.

Over the previous couple of months, surveys have proven that Tesla’s fame has been happening, and the inventory value is crashing additional than the remainder of the business.

Many individuals have related the pattern with Musk changing into more and more political on Twitter and alienating an enormous a part of Tesla’s userbase – specifically liberals – who purchase EVs at a a lot greater charge than the conservatives.

Electrek’s Take

Musk was at all times the defacto Tesla spokesperson, however when Tesla had a world PR division, the automaker had a lot stronger public communications that didn’t need to at all times undergo the CEO.

Since dissolving the PR division, Musk’s Twitter web page has grow to be the supply of 99% of Tesla’s official communications.

It is smart for the corporate to construct a stronger voice of its personal as many individuals don’t really feel like following Musk on the social media platform.

When you have been there for his frequent updates and feedback about Tesla merchandise, these are actually are few and much between Musk’s political feedback, conspiracy theories, and issues concerning the “woke thoughts virus.”

I’m going to get enthusiastic about Musk on Twitter as soon as he appears to be extra enthusiastic about Tesla launching the Cybertruck than the subsequent QAnon drop.

That’s clearly a joke, however generally his Twitter seems like that.