UPDATED 23:01 EDT / JULY 05 2018

EMERGING TECH

Elon Musk attacks media again, accuses journalist of bribing former employee

Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has stepped up his attack on the media on multiple fronts.

On Thursday, Musk (pictured) accused one journalist of making bribes and working on behalf of an investor to damage the electric car maker’s reputation. He also attacked a number of other outlets for reporting incorrect data and featuring analysts he doesn’t agree with.

Musk alleged that Linette Lopez, senior finance correspondent at Business Insider, paid “bribes” to a former Tesla employee in return for in return for “valuable Tesla IP in exchange.” Musk has previously claimed that a saboteur within the company hacked its code, shared company secrets with outside parties and may be behind a small factory fire.

In a second tweet, Musk asked Lopez, “Did you compensate or promise to compensate [former employee] Martin Tripp for inside information about Tesla? Did he, under that inducement, provide you with exaggerated negative info, which you printed, but turned out to be untrue?”

Doubling down, Musk also accused Lopez of publishing “several false articles about Tesla, including a doozy where she claimed Tesla scrapped more batteries than our total S,X &3 production number, which is physically impossible.” Then he added arguably the most serious allegation of all, albeit only by implication, asking Lopez, “Is it possible you’re serving as an inside trading source for one of Tesla’s biggest short-sellers?”

The short seller, in the context of the conversation on Twitter, is Jim Chanos, the president and founder of Kynikos Associates, who according to BGR “has a lot of money riding on Tesla failing.”

Lopez was not the only target of Musk’s online attacks with both Reuters and CNBC also being targeted. Musk also wrote that “Reuters is relentlessly negative about Tesla. They just wrote a bogus article saying S production last week was low by 800 cars. S/X annual prod is set at ~100k, ie 1,900/week. Tesla built 1,913 S/X cars at our standard ~50/50 split last week, which is right on target.”

On CNBC, Musk criticized the network for its choice of on-air talent, writing, “Is it true that you are putting on analysts with such low ratings & extremely bad prediction records? Are your viewers informed about an analyst’s track record before hearing their opinion.” In a later tweet, Musk claimed he’s “not attacking all media or even all of @CNBC. Just asked if you inform [the] public about an analyst’s prediction track record about a subject when putting them on your show.”

This is far from the first time Musk has attacked the media. He went on the offensive back in May over the number of words and airtime given to coverage of fatal accidents involving Tesla vehicles.

Photo: jurvetson/Flickr

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