John Oliver is also a huge dumbass
Due to circumstances I recently watched three John Oliver shows. I'd never seen him before and won't likely see him again, but those three shared enough characteristics that I'm confident of the style of show he runs. Any show with steady character will appeal to some, and not appeal to others.
One show was about... I forget the name, but the guy owns the largest privately held coal mining company and practices SLAPP. So the show was about that guy and SLAPP. I'm moderately familiar with the latter and it seemed fairly decent (within the parameters of the kind of show he does).
Another was about multi-level marketing companies and amounted to an infomercial about their perils. It was pretty spot on.
The third was about bitcoin. His heart was in the right place, but he's in a position with his staff to have done better research and documented serious, insurmountable issues with bitcoin (like its designed inefficiency -- one aspect of which is the escalating energy requirements) and repeating misleading/inaccurate statements that are "common knowledge" (about banking and transactional delays). To put it bluntly, I was disappointed.
The advantage of someone like John Oliver covering the Tesla/Elon Musk story is that it raises visibility. The downside is that the show is made for entertainment value and the predisposition of he or his staff will rule the day. This isn't journalism and any "investigation" is likely to be skin deep.
Would I like to have this story told to a wider audience? Sure -- but for that to happen there are costs. One is it being done as entertainment. Second, if its more entertaining to flip the story (make it about unstable Elon) well...
(and given the small sample of John Oliver that I've seen, a negative story about Elon would fit better with what he does rather than picking fights with mass media over biased and profiteering coverage)