So this claim is supposedly from Reuters but this claim isn't in the Reuters article? That's disinformation of the most obvious sort...
Reuters was claiming that their "source" said that the Saudis were definitely not interested, so they have a clearly-bad source anyway...
Most of the media seems to “narrative quote shop,” so to speak.
Looks like,
1) they are tasked with a narrative to sell to the public
2) they seek out a person whose work in a particular field would lend seeming credibility to that person commenting in support of the tasked narrative (“analyst,” “banker,” “attorney,” “former regulator at,” “Professor of X at (“prestigious”) Y School of Z,...)
3) if step 2 is not readily available, step down to an anonymous source(s) from a step 2 field, (speculative step 3b, fabricate a step 3)
4) if step 3 is not readily available, make a general broad but emphatic reference to step 2 field members (“when I speak to -analysts, consumers, legal experts, other CEOs,...- all I hear is...”),
5) use cherry picked social media comments to give the impression of support of the narrative with the bonus that aggressive characterizations the media outlet could be held legally accountable for saying directly can be read on air as a quote from social media (let’s see what bulls and bears are saying on twitter... read one ineffective bull tweet, and three agressive bear tweets, “judging by the reactions on social media, looks like this latest news from Tesla is not being well received to say the least,”),
6) present an interpretation of a market pricing move as support of the tasked narrative (“look at the movement of TSLA, Tesla bonds, those newly issued credit default swaps,... on news of this latest setback, controversy,...).
This, of course, is not a phenomenon unique to Tesla.
