The comments here got a little too heated and crazy, which is too bad. I think it's hard to have the True Believers and the Seeking Alpha types in the same place, because they're both zealots on different ends of the same topic. Neither has more information than anybody else, but they all feel that they're right.
I guess my comments are this. Companies overreact when heat comes down on them from the press, and even more so when stock prices seem to follow a perceived or actually negative story. This decision could have come from a regional manager thinking they were doing the Right Thing for The Company. People with aspirations often do those kinds of things without consulting others first, in the hopes that their hard work will be recognized. Then again, maybe it came from Elon himself. We don't know.
On the other hand, when it comes down to disputes between a company and an employee, I will almost always take the employee's side until evidence is provided that they were in the wrong. Here in the US, employers have nearly all of the power when it comes to the employer/employee dynamic. And employees rely on their employer for much more than just a paycheck. Often times your health insurance and even life insurance policies are provided as part of your employment, and are terminated at the same time you are. If you get into a car accident on the way home, or you have a partner or kid battling chronic illness, being terminated like that can absolutely ruin you financially. That kind of power needs to be checked, in my opinion, so I hate seeing a story where a leaked email regarding a pricing promotion got someone fired. It's not like he was harassing a coworker, or stealing from the company. He was sending out marketing material to customers, and those customers were by his account responding positively.
Most important to me personally, and probably least to most people here, is that I have stopped reading Electrek long ago. I've had a few back-and-forths with one of the people over there, and in my personal opinion, facts don't seem to matter. Getting a story that gets views that turn into ad revenue is the name of the game. That's very sad to me. There have been several stories posted over there that were entirely wrong. Seeing people talk about this story when it broke just reaffirmed my decision. As others have pointed out, journalists have a responsibility to verify stories before publishing them. I know we're all getting more used to the twitter news cycle, but there's a lot at stake here for the protection of the US definition of journalism and the protections the press receive under US law. That may seem hyperbolic, but here in the US, the courts have decided that a blogger is considered a journalist (within reason). A site that claims to be an EV news site, then, has a responsibility to uphold their end of that bargain.
In the end, I guess I'm just disappointed all around. There are so many people that read too far into things, or go too far off the rails speculating with little information to guide them. Those of us that like Tesla and what they're doing are excited, and I get that. But that isn't a good enough reason to abandon _reason_. And this entire situation was started by exactly that.
I guess my comments are this. Companies overreact when heat comes down on them from the press, and even more so when stock prices seem to follow a perceived or actually negative story. This decision could have come from a regional manager thinking they were doing the Right Thing for The Company. People with aspirations often do those kinds of things without consulting others first, in the hopes that their hard work will be recognized. Then again, maybe it came from Elon himself. We don't know.
On the other hand, when it comes down to disputes between a company and an employee, I will almost always take the employee's side until evidence is provided that they were in the wrong. Here in the US, employers have nearly all of the power when it comes to the employer/employee dynamic. And employees rely on their employer for much more than just a paycheck. Often times your health insurance and even life insurance policies are provided as part of your employment, and are terminated at the same time you are. If you get into a car accident on the way home, or you have a partner or kid battling chronic illness, being terminated like that can absolutely ruin you financially. That kind of power needs to be checked, in my opinion, so I hate seeing a story where a leaked email regarding a pricing promotion got someone fired. It's not like he was harassing a coworker, or stealing from the company. He was sending out marketing material to customers, and those customers were by his account responding positively.
Most important to me personally, and probably least to most people here, is that I have stopped reading Electrek long ago. I've had a few back-and-forths with one of the people over there, and in my personal opinion, facts don't seem to matter. Getting a story that gets views that turn into ad revenue is the name of the game. That's very sad to me. There have been several stories posted over there that were entirely wrong. Seeing people talk about this story when it broke just reaffirmed my decision. As others have pointed out, journalists have a responsibility to verify stories before publishing them. I know we're all getting more used to the twitter news cycle, but there's a lot at stake here for the protection of the US definition of journalism and the protections the press receive under US law. That may seem hyperbolic, but here in the US, the courts have decided that a blogger is considered a journalist (within reason). A site that claims to be an EV news site, then, has a responsibility to uphold their end of that bargain.
In the end, I guess I'm just disappointed all around. There are so many people that read too far into things, or go too far off the rails speculating with little information to guide them. Those of us that like Tesla and what they're doing are excited, and I get that. But that isn't a good enough reason to abandon _reason_. And this entire situation was started by exactly that.
