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Since Tesla disbanded the global core public relations team at the US headquarters, CEO Musk alone has maintained the brand image and carried out unified publicity, which often seems unable to achieve timely early warning and effectively deal with public opinion crises. For example, after nearly a week of defending the rights of Tesla, the female car owner of the recent Shanghai auto show, Musk made an announcement on this.

A few days ago, it was reported that Gary Black, a former Goldman Sachs executive, asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Twitter: would you consider hiring a publicist? At the same time, it is also mentioned that Tesla is doing well without a car, but with the advent of FSD, the market continues to expand, and competitors attack Tesla's obvious market leaders, the risks are increasing.

In response, Musk replied on Twitter that other companies spend money on advertising and manipulating public opinion, while Tesla focuses on products. "I believe in the public."

As we all know, the recent fermented "incident of safeguarding the rights of Chinese car owners" has put Tesla in an abyss, except that the incident of safeguarding the roof rights of Tesla, a female car owner, has been put on a hot search for many times because of brake failure. According to media reports, Tesla has been exposed more than a dozen brake failures in Jiangxi, Shanghai, Zhejiang and other places. This also made Tesla's share price suffer frequently, but Musk did not make a statement until recently when netizens asked about it.

Interestingly, Musk's reply was teased by Jia Mingdi, general manager of SAIC Audi Marketing Department, who is in charge of SAIC Audi project. It posted on moments: on behalf of SAIC Volkswagen, thank Musk for his affirmation.

Although Musk Twitter has more than 52 million followers, its influence in North America is far greater than that of several public relations teams, which makes Musk often respond to unpleasant comments directly through "hard criticism." However, due to the cultural differences between the United States and China, there has never been a car company in the Chinese market that dares to deal with consumers with a "tough" attitude.

For example, in response to the previous incident of safeguarding the roof rights of the female owner of the Shanghai auto show, Tao Lin, vice president of foreign affairs of Tesla, also made a tough declaration of "no compromise", which may to some extent represent Musk's views on the matter.

Although Musk has mentioned that he hates marketing, but the Chinese market is indeed a market that desperately needs to be announced. In this regard, in October last year, the US media Electrek reported that Tesla had dissolved his US public relations department, and the news was also confirmed by Tesla's senior management.

However, in October of the same year, Tesla recruited regional external affairs managers. According to previous recruitment information, Tesla China has decided to recruit regional external affairs managers in cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The main responsibilities will not only support Tesla's business development in the regional market, but also "handle various regional government affairs and media-related matters" and "grasp the trends of public opinion on the Internet in real time." timely early warning and effective handling of public opinion crisis "," collect and develop new strategic plans "and so on. It can be seen that in the face of the current pressure of public opinion from Tesla in China, it is necessary for Tesla to strengthen China's public relations team.

However, products and public relations are mutual, under the guarantee of good product power, public relations can play a saving role in time, otherwise good public relations is useless, after all, the product is fundamental.

For example, in the continuously fermented "incident of safeguarding the rights of Chinese female car owners," Tesla today released the "Communication Progress and incident description of Ms. Zhang on the Protection of her Rights at the Shanghai Auto Show" through her official Weibo. Apart from saying that she will continue to actively contact Ms. Zhang, she hopes to communicate face-to-face so that testing can be carried out by a qualified third-party authority as soon as possible. It was also mentioned that some netizens provided information indicating that Feng and Han were the main organizers of the auto show's "rights protection" incident, and Tesla reserved the right to safeguard his legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law.

In response to Tesla's statement issued earlier, referring to "Feng, Han is the organizer of rights protection activities," auto media person Feng Shiming issued a statement in response to the allegations. It is also mentioned that "the person who unlocks the bell must tie the bell, and throwing the pot will not solve the problem." It seems to imply that Teslain looks squarely at his product problems.

In any case, the "feud" between Tesla and the rights-activist female car owner will continue. Although the Shanghai Auto Show will close today, Tesla has always maintained signs of hot search. As for the outcome, we also keep an eye on it.

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