‘We are the media now’: why Tesla’s robotaxis were dominated by Elon Musk superfans

Over the years, Tesla has built portion of its estimation connected hosting big, bold events to make authentic hype for upcoming releases. The robotaxi motorboat successful Austin, Texas, past week wasn't 1 of them.

Coverage of the rollout was dominated by a close-knit cohort of Tesla influencers and Elon Musk superfans, galore of whom are openly supportive of the CEO's vision. Journalists and tech bloggers who mightiness person been much captious of the exertion were not lone excluded but besides actively ridiculed and mocked by Tesla fans and immoderate of their followers for attempting to inquire basal questions astir the service. In Austin and online, Tesla fans were taking a cue from Musk, who has spent years fomenting a civilization of resentment toward captious media.

One of the much salient influencers, who goes by Zack connected X, claimed helium was approached aggregate times by a Reuters journalist, whom helium promptly ignored. That post, which has implicit 2,000 likes, received supportive responses from different users - 1 wrote that the work and different bequest media outlets "can spell F themselves." Another said they would unfollow immoderate account that simply responded to members of the media.

"The …

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