Electrek can confirm that Tesla has dissolved its PR department – technically becoming the first automaker who doesn’t talk to the press.
It is something that we have discussed on our podcast several times over the last few months, but now that reporters are publicly complaining about it – we thought we’d clear things up in an article.
Tesla hasn’t responded to a press inquiry in months.
If you are one of those reporters who isn’t getting a response from Tesla, don’t take it personally because it’s due to the automaker having dissolved its PR team.
The move has been confirmed to Electrek at the highest level at Tesla.
Keely Sulprizio, the last person known to be in charge of PR/communications at Tesla, left the automaker in December of last year and following her departure, virtually every other member of Tesla’s PR either left or moved to other positions at Tesla.
After Sulprizio, Alan Cooper was the most senior member of Tesla’s communications team and in February, his role was changed to “Director of Demand Generation”, but he has now apparently left the company.
Gina Antonini, a Sr Manager on Tesla’s comms team for 3 years, saw her role changed to Director of External Relations and Employee Experience at Tesla in February.
Also in February, Tesla Communications Manager Alexander Ingram move to a role as Content Lead for Design Studio at Tesla.
Danielle Meister, Senior Global Communications Manager at Tesla, left for WhatsApp in April.
Most recently, Rich Otto, who handled some of the latest PR projects at Tesla, like exclusive videos with Youtubers and Jay Leno, is now a product manager, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Tesla still seems to have a few PR managers in European and Asian markets, but the core global team working out of the US has been dissolved.
Electrek’s Take
Hey, a new first in the industry for Tesla!
When the move was confirmed to us, again at the highest level, the reason behind it wasn’t explained.
In the past, CEO Elon Musk had some harsh comments for the press, which he believes treats Tesla unfairly.
So if they are not being fair, why would we have a “relation” with them? So no press relations department? I guess that could be the logic here.
Personally, I had my ups and downs with Tesla’s PR department. At times, they were really helpful with my reporting with responses and corrections and other times, they were shunning me because of more negative reporting or leaks that we posted.
It’s not completely unusual. I had similar situations happen with PR departments at other automakers, but working with Tesla’s PR department was always an interesting experience.
Tesla receives more press than any other automaker, but the team was always understaffed.
It literally was one tenth of the size of a PR team for an automaker of Tesla’s size and probably 20 times smaller than the PR teams at most major automakers.
Yet, they managed to correct a lot of misinformation in the press and create some great blog posts and PR content over the years all while working under the pressure of a boss who was infamously often enraged by bad coverage.
While I believe that they were misleading at times and I don’t agree with all their methods, I think Tesla’s PR department was a net positive overall as they helped correct a lot of misinformation about the company and helped get the word out.
I didn’t always see eye-to-eye with everyone I’ve met on the team, but I was always impressed by their passion for Tesla’s mission.
Since dissolving the team, I had hope that Tesla would try to build a new one, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.
Instead, Tesla is leaving all press inquiry unanswered and doesn’t comment on any story.
Now it seems that the only “official” response that the press can get from the company are from Elon directly – mostly on Twitter.
In my opinion, this is a problem. Mainly because Elon simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to answer 1% of inquires, but also because he seems to be almost exclusively responding to fans who are praising him on Twitter and almost never challenge his views. It’s a problem that we have discussed in the past with the “Tesla Twitter”.
I don’t like the message it sends not to respond to any press inquiry. Are they all valid? Of course, they are not. But there are some legitimate questions that the press sends to Tesla and the public would benefit from answers.
Ignoring them, which is basically what is happening without a PR department, is only adding to something that most Tesla owners would probably agree was already one of Tesla’s biggest weaknesses: communications.
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.
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