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Comment by Florin_Andrei | Hacker News Reader

I'm getting the impression that there's some kind of axe-grinding going on in the general region of WSJ when it comes to Elon. Not sure why.

But this article definitely feels like someone just trying hard to find an angle to cast a deprecating light on Tesla. Like a "vested interests" type of feeling.

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Head of Sales Chief Financial Officer Chief Accounting Officer Treasurer Director of Battery Tech

All gone in the past year. That's a notable amount of turnover. Some of them left a lot of options on the table when they chose to depart.

It's odd, and probably what triggered an entire article about something as normally mundane as a leave of absence.

The electric car market is booming right now. All of these people would be in strong demand. And with the Model 3 now in production they might well be looking for a new challenge with, probably, much better pay.

Also their VP of Autopilot Software, out the door after 6 months.

WSJ doesn't have great love for most silicon valley companies. In Tesla's case, I think it's their continued over promising and under delivery. Currently the high cash burn plus low production volume on the model 3.

Wsj also has some nice pieces about Tesla, such as their recent tour of the production factory. https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-factory-in-a-fishbowl-15...

I lost respect for WSJ because of their continuous anti-Tesla editorials. I’m not at all a Tesla fanboy, but the WSJ commentary on subsidies are just trashy attacks that are devoid of any logic or context, given that the help that other industries and automakers have received.

For example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwinton/2015/02/16/tesla-sho...

For those interested in reading more on this

Source article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tesla-paradox-1423786534

Electric car site looking at subsidies across the industry: https://electrek.co/2016/11/25/tesla-subsidies-big-three-oil...

One complaint I have with both of you both is that neither provides breakdowns by dollar of subsidies per car produced or sold.

> WSJ ... editorials

Twice I conducted a study: I collected everything on their op-ed page over a week or two and coded them for their political stance. I think there were a couple pro-Democratic/liberal pieces out of over a hundred, and a few criticized the Republicans;[0] all the rest were pro-GOP/conservative or anti-liberal/Dem (plus a few that were apolitical). (And if you think the NY Times is the same, you're wrong: Ross Douthat, Bret Stephens (former WSJ editorial page editor) and David Brooks are all conservatives, and maybe others are too.) I encourage anyone to do the same; I feel I can almost guarantee results ever over a small sample like a day.

My conclusion: WSJ op-eds and editorials are partisan mouthpieces for the Republican Party and conservatives. I don't know how Tesla fits into that, but that's their motive. Denying climate change and demonizing any attempt at a solution? Supporting big oil? Musk pulling away from Trump? Others might have a better guess than I do.

[0] Criticizing Republicans is not necessarily pro-Democratic. For example, an editorial could criticize the Republicans for not cutting taxes enough.

It's owned by Rupert Murdoch, that shouldn't be a surprise.

From what I recall, the editorial page was much the same before the Murdoch era. However, the rest of the paper was a fairly stark contrast, and I didn't have the general impression that they slanted the actual news. After Murdoch bought it I lost faith in their reporting, but I never held the editorials against them too much prior to that. The opinion section seemed like a quarantine for the right wing types.

Back in Apple's pre-Steve Jobs era, though, I did get the impression that the news stories were consistently bashing Apple in a way that made it seem like they had some ulterior motivation. Apple would always be described as "troubled" or "beleagured" like a mantra. And it's passed into mythology that Apple was near bankruptcy when in fact they hoarded cash and abhorred debt.

So I'm not really sure if any anti-Tesla agenda is really coming from Murdoch.

> I didn't have the general impression that they slanted the actual news. After Murdoch bought it I lost faith in their reporting

There is (or was) a lot of internal conflict over what the reporters feel is favorable coverage of Trump.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wall+street+journal+trump+coverage...

Good journalists are like sharks and they're getting whiffs of Theranos or Enron and are rightly digging into the company.

Digging is good, that's their job. But this is borderline innuendo. Journalists are supposed to be dispassionate.

> Journalists are supposed to be dispassionate.

This has never been true, has it?

Look at it this way, journalism’s most prized.... award... the Pulitzer, is named after a man famous for introducing the original Fake News ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism )

> This has never been true, has it?

That's like saying everybody lies, therefore nobody has ever been honest. Sure, journalists are human and have emotions and make mistakes, but it's not a binary issue; it's a continuum. Journalists generally should strive to be dispassionate.

> Journalists generally should strive to be dispassionate.

But why?

Dispassionate people don't work 20 hour days for weeks on end for hardly any money, digging into a story that they know might not ever lead anywhere.

What in particular from the article seemed overly passionate?

If you don't follow US politics, most conservatives hate Tesla and the WSJ (part of News Corp) is probably the preeminent conservative paper in the country.

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