Media

Elon Musk takes to Twitter to blast traditional media ‘hatestream’

Tesla chief ’s tweets come as carmaker gets another subpoena from SEC over Musk’s 2018 posts

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Tue Feb 8 2022 - 08:06

Elon Musk took to Twitter Tuesday morning in Asia to criticise traditional media for pumping out a "relentless hatestream" of bad news.

In a string of tweets and replies to other posts, the Tesla chief executive lamented that it was "so hard to find out what's going on in the world without being bombarded with news that makes one sad and angry!"

Mr Musk lashed out at the media for “focusing relentlessly” on bad news, saying it doesn’t give an accurate representation of reality. In a reply to another user, the billionaire said “careless negativity (destruction) is much harder than thoughtful positivity (creation)”.

The tweets came a few hours after Brett Winton, director of research at Ark Investment Management, tweeted "it is deeply weird that the internet tried to bully, threaten, extort and browbeat us into giving up on Tesla", the electric-car pioneer that sold more than 936,000 cars last year, up 87 per cent on 2020 figures.

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To which Mr Musk replied “the insane tweet FUD campaign and press hatestream of 2017-2019 is still easily found”, using the shorthand for fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Mr Musk's anti-media tweets came just as Tesla said a California agency informed the electric automaker that it has grounds for a civil complaint, following an investigation into racial harassment. And making a bad day worse, Tesla received another subpoena from the US Securities and Exchange Commission about Mr Musk's tweeting back in 2018 that he was considering taking the EV maker private.

Mr Musk was particularly active in replying to other users in his latest Twitter tirade. In one exchange he suggested that “maybe part of why traditional media outlets are so negative is because old habits die hard? They so rarely even try to be positive that said censorship isn’t the answer.” – Bloomberg

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