
How Elon Musk Stole My Car - louis-paul
https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-motors-stole-my-car/
======
6stringmerc
> _Tesla has a strange way of communicating with customers I think is best
> described as customer service vaporware. That is, they spend more time
> trying to create the illusion of customer service, rather than actually
> providing it. There is no mechanism for them to get feedback, as I tried to
> provide, so its difficult to see how they can improve if they don’t know
> where they are going wrong._

Now we find out the unexpected corporate benefit of not having showrooms or
physical locations by which to service clients - if they can't walk into your
place of business and make a scene, just consider them a happy customer!

> _In my experience, its a hobby masquerading as a company, and it can
> probably run as a hobbyist organization for some time._

This is the gut feeling I get with every over-the-top announcement by Tesla.
Frequently I get down-voted here for griping about the linguistic flourishes
in Tesla announcements, but I have my reasons. Sure, creating a neat
innovation or clever door opening apparatus is impressive and all, and great
for show, but the boring part of pulling it off reliably XX,XXX times is a
totally different animal.

Also, a corporation where everybody is too on eggshells to point out that the
boss lifted a customer's car and they're too scared to engage either the CEO
or the customer is, for lack of a better concept, high-school-level drama
lameness.

~~~
mikeash
They've built over 100,000 vehicles, built out a massive nationwide charging
network (plus a huge network in Europe and a decent-sized one in China),
produced the best highway auto-drive system available today, and currently
have the best selling car in their price segment in many areas.

Yes, clever doors and gimmicks like their new Summon feature aren't worth the
hype they put into them, but that's not the only thing they're doing.

That's not a hobby company by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, they have
problems. Specifically, communications during the delivery process has always
been troublesome for them, and there's no reason it should be. But that
doesn't make it a "hobbyist organization." That's just silly.

I mean, GM's failed processes meant that their products spontaneously shut off
and killed people, and they sat on their hands doing nothing while people were
still dying, but we don't call _that_ a "hobbyist organization...."

~~~
6stringmerc
Oh I know they sell a lot of cars, I've seen hundreds if not a thousand
locally since the debut.

> _That 's not a hobby company by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, they
> have problems. Specifically, communications during the delivery process has
> always been troublesome for them, and there's no reason it should be. But
> that doesn't make it a "hobbyist organization." That's just silly._

Based on the descriptions of the behavior of Tesla's internal customer
service, it actually sounds worse than a hobbyist organization. This is
personal perspective though, based on multiple professional and grunt-level
jobs over the years.

> _I mean, GM 's failed processes meant that their products spontaneously shut
> off and killed people, and they sat on their hands doing nothing while
> people were still dying, but we don't call that a "hobbyist
> organization...."_

GM is, if memory serves correctly, facing significant legal ramifications
(monetary) for their bad oversight and will, presumably, be held accountable
in court. Like Ford and Firestone. Or Takata. Pretty much every legacy auto
manufacturer started off as a 'hobbyist organization' and after enough success
and longevity, they grew into large enterprises that we know today. Can Tesla
weather a GM-ignition swtich type lawsuit? Maybe, time will tell.

~~~
mikeash
GM being held accountable is irrelevant here. My point is simply that large
organizations we'd never call "hobbyist" do vastly more stupid things than
what Tesla has done here.

I will note that Tesla _did_ just weather what could have been the equivalent
of the GM ignition switch problem. They discovered a problem with the front
seat belts which could have easily have been fatal in a crash. They pretty
much immediately recalled every single vehicle they had on the road to inspect
them. As far as I know the problem only ever existed in the one car where they
found it, but they immediately took charge of the problem instead of covering
their ears and trying to wish it away until they couldn't.

All kinds of companies are dysfunctional in all sorts of ways. That doesn't
make it right, but I don't see how the label "hobbyist" applies just because
of it.

~~~
6stringmerc
Honestly I think we're in a semantics loop of sorts. I view the Tesla auto
company through the same lens as Kanye West's shoe line with Adidas. Yes,
Kanye and Tesla sell as many units as they want. But, and this is a big but,
neither the automotive or shoe industry are the primary field of expertise for
the person at the top (Elon, Kanye) and thus can reasonably be viewed as an
outsized 'hobby' until they return to their core competency. Some hobbies can
be extremely profitable, no doubt.

~~~
mikeash
That would put SpaceX in the "hobby" group too, which I would find to be very
weird.

Heck, lots of pretty big, serious companies have CEOs whose expertise doesn't
line up well with the business. That's why you delegate.

It is just about how you define the word, though. It's obviously open to a lot
of interpretation, and if your interpretation is one way, I can hardly say
it's wrong, even if I might say it should be a different way.

~~~
6stringmerc
Well John Carmack spent 10 good years on Armadillo Aerospace and eventually
went back to his day job, so I'm still comfortable viewing certain enterprises
by people with means as being 'hobbies' as a general term, insofar as if they
wake up one morning and decide to do something else, they still have money, a
home, and other opportunities. The IRS has some pretty interesting
perspectives on 'hobbies' as well, as I've discovered over time.

~~~
mikeash
I'd have no problem calling Armadillo a hobby company, they never had any
paying customers (I think) and never produced anything of practical value. Not
that there's anything _wrong_ with that.

I'd personally say SpaceX fit that category through the Falcon 1 days, but
moved past it once they moved to the Falcon 9. YMMV.

------
sithadmin
>"[The Tesla Owner Advisor] called me to explain he had a call in with the
Office of the CEO at Tesla and was working with his team in Tesla to resolve a
problem that had come up — their CEO, Elon Musk, had taken my car and was
using it as his personal vehicle to test a new version of autopilot. Even
worse, he said he could see all the calls I had made into the Orlando delivery
center this past week, and no one was taking my calls because no one knew what
to do."

The fact that a customer-facing resource is airing information about internal
process screwups directly to a customer is indicative that something is very
wrong with service management at Tesla; this is a bush-league customer service
mistake. Not only is the customer being informed that there is a apparently a
massive issue with the pipeline for delivering product to customer, but
they're also indicating that there's clearly nobody enforcing ownership or
accountability for reported issues.

~~~
michaelt
The article I read said "(1) tesla fucked up a customer's order, then (2)
tesla fucked up fixing it ten times in a row at many different levels of the
organisation despite the fact a fix should have been easy, then (3) the
customer insisted on an explanation and someone at tesla was honest"

I'm confused as to why you think (3) is the problem here - it seems to me that
(1) and (2) are the root cause - (3) is just an embarrassing repercussion.

I mean, the customer knows there's nobody enforcing ownership or
accountability for reported issues when they contact ten different people and
can't get the problem resolved. It's not like inscrutable customer service
would have hidden the fact the car hadn't been provided.

~~~
ChrisArgyle
A support rep's main job is to put the customer at ease. The more details the
customer has to contend with the more stressed out they are.

The best action here would be explain that there was an internal process issue
at Tesla, apologize and then make an offer to reconcile the error.

edit: wording

~~~
michaelt
It only reduces the customer's stress to hear "don't worry about it sir, I'll
take care of it" if that statement is credible. If I'm being told that and I
know it's bullshit, my stress level is increased, not decreased.

Once the customer is on their third call to customer service, the credibility
is already lost. Unless the customer will have their car in a single digit
number of days, refusing to be honest with them isn't going to help.

~~~
oxguy3
Customer service's job is also to make the company not look bad. If you're
fully honest about something as ridiculous as the CEO not letting you have
your car, and then proceeding to not answer your calls because no one knew
what to do, that makes the company look terrible.

If you share that kind of knowledge, the customer might end up writing a blog
post showing how incompetent the company is, and that blog post might make
front page of Hacker News.

------
technofiend
Had this been "Elon took my car and told his company to give me a heavily
discounted one in exchange" then presumably this article would have been
filled with praise for their customer service. What a missed opportunity.

Instead of feeling like you are gambling on a potential upgrade my perception
is now I'd be gambling on a potential loss / failure-to-deliver if I bought a
used car from Tesla. It's only one datapoint, but it's the only data point I
have.

~~~
jjoe
_Had this been "Elon took my car and told his company to give me a heavily
discounted one in exchange" then presumably this article would have been
filled with praise for their customer service. What a missed opportunity._

Were it the case, we'd have never heard anything from this customer. Happy
customers rarely make the news.

~~~
spott
eh, REALLY HAPPY customers frequently make social media like reddit and here.

There are all sorts of stories of " _company I love_ screwed up and really
came through!" Hell, apple gets all sorts of these comments when they do some
out of apple care thing.

------
zachware
I once ordered 100 Model S's at one time (Google it) then later took delivery
of 12 Model S's at one time. Here's what I can tell you. Tesla's system for
selling one new car to one person at one time is very, very good.

Tesla's system for doing anything other than one car to one person at one time
is not good.

When we initially placed our 100 unit order we got 100 confirmation emails
timed suspiciously as though some poor person was entering the details one at
a time. Their owner's website couldn't handle 100 unique vehicles tied to one
user. When we took delivery we had to go through a bunch of human processes 12
unique times. The people seemed incapable of batching tasks like signing title
paperwork. We went through the routine for each car twelve times.

All of their systems are built to do one thing very well.

So this guy asked Tesla to do something it is not built to do and sell him a
loaner car. And the systems broke. All of them. In Tesla systems (operational
and technological) everything is built to do one thing.

Yes, it stinks that some people at Tesla acted dumbly in response to this. But
overall, don't forget. People are components of a system.

There are no programs in the Tesla system to handle any of the variables this
situation threw at it, starting with what the guy wanted Tesla to do.

When you deliberately ask a system to do something it isn't designed to do you
shouldn't be surprised when it breaks.

------
knowaveragejoe
> Tesla is pioneering two things at once, (a) a luxury full-EV segment for
> passenger vehicles, and (b) bypassing the traditional dealer network and
> selling directly to consumers. Since I never got my car, I can’t speak to
> (a). But, because (b) is so horribly broken, I don’t think (a) can succeed.

How on earth does this person's experience point to the non-dealership model
being broken? Has this person never dealt with a shitty dealership?

~~~
mikeash
Yeah, that's pretty weird. People experience this problem _all the time_ with
dealerships: you call up and make a deal on a car, they "hold it" for you, you
get there and it turns out the car you wanted "was just sold" but the dealer
is happy to sell you this other one instead, which by the way is several
thousand dollars more expensive.

At least with Tesla, you can be pretty sure that Elon Musk actually did take
this guy's car. The dealers will just lie to you; in the scenario above, they
typically never had the car in the first place.

I'm not defending what Tesla did here in any way, but this problem certainly
doesn't make a case for dealers.

~~~
manarth
> you call up and make a deal on a car, they "hold it" for you, you get there
> and it turns out the car you wanted "was just sold"

Although this generally doesn't happen after you stumped up thousands of
dollars as a deposit.

~~~
mikeash
Only because the opportunity presents itself early. I've seen plenty of
stories of people getting screwed like this after putting money down too.

------
thecosas
The best customer service 1) identifies and resolves the client's problem and
then 2) tries to identify what went wrong internally and escalate
appropriately.

Aligning yourself with the customer, then failing to provide a solution is a
rookie move.

None of us were on the line with this customer; it's very possible he was
prying for details and the CSR was trying to be accommodating with information
because they weren't empowered to deliver a good solution.

------
eridal
This needs to end with Elon Musk delivering by himself a brand-new top-model
car, with him saying: _" sorry I took your car, now you'll get mine"_

------
wiremine
My father-in-law works for a Tier 2 auto supplier that works primarily with
GM. Elements of this story sounded very similar to how GM operates: no
callbacks, lack of empathy, passing the buck, etc.

I wonder how deep the similarities go, or if this story is just a really odd
edge case.

~~~
Navarr
I imagine this is an odd-edge case being that it's not a typical purchase, but
a purchase of a showroom model.

~~~
wiremine
Yeah, I think that's true. But it still alludes to a broken corporate culture.
If nobody can call back because they can't take the bull by the horns, that
tells you something. (if it is indeed a true story).

------
et2o
Yikes. They should give him a better car at the agreed upon price.

~~~
noir_lord
If they have any customer service savvy they'll get ahead of this, public
statement apologising and a much better car at the original price.

It's easily fixed if they just get ahead of it and then figure out what the
hell went wrong and how to prevent it in future.

It's like that thing about Doctors getting sued less if they just apologise
for screwups, shit happens and most people are understanding if you are honest
about it - mealy mouthed platitudes from the "Big Book of Covering Screwups"
however annoy people.

~~~
mkaziz
My car insurance tells me to never apologize even if it is my fault because
that can be equated with admission of guilt. I imagine Doctors are told the
same in regard to malpractice suits.

~~~
mikeash
That's because you might _think_ you're at fault, but actually not be. Or you
might truly be at fault, but in a way that can't be proven. And there might be
a huge amount of money at stake, if someone is injured and requires extensive
medical treatment.

None of that applies here. Tesla is clearly at fault, actual damages are
basically zero (the guy got his money back, at least), and making it right
will be pretty cheap, if Tesla actually decides to do so.

~~~
mkaziz
I don't disagree with you; my response was to parent's comment about doctors
who apologize.

~~~
mikeash
I see, I didn't quite connect the dots there. Well, if anybody cares about why
I think insurance companies might say that, there it is....

------
zekevermillion
This is an interesting anecdote about an extremely unlikely scenario, and one
that hopefully you could laugh off if you're in a position to spend $100k on a
luxury car.

~~~
x1798DE
I think most people in a position to spend $100k on a luxury car would not
laugh off a breach of contract worth approximately $20k.

~~~
zekevermillion
I would rather be able to say "Elon Musk stole my Tesla" than "I paid $100k
for a luxury car". But then, I am not in a position to say either of those
things, so perhaps my perspective would change.

------
brandon272
Seems silly to chalk Tesla up to a "hobby masquerading as a company" based on
a single interaction buying (or trying to buy) a vehicle that is not even sold
as part of their typical sales and delivery channel. What would this person's
experience had been if they weren't seeking a special discount deal and just
ordered one normally?

The only concerning part in the article is the explanation by Kevin that the
reason he couldn't get through to anyone wasn't because no one was available,
but rather that they saw him calling and refused to answer because they didn't
want to deal with him.

------
peter303
You probably had case for a lawsuit, but not worth the effort. You story
probably lost more business for Telsa than they would have paid you damages.
(Maybe they'll sue you for libel)

~~~
vanattab
It likely that this article put whoever told him Elon was driving the car
around in some hot water. I would not want to be that guy when Elon reads the
headlines. I am not saying Elon is vindictive or anything just that it would
be a uncomfortable position to be in. It's likely he thought the buyer would
think it was neat that Elon was driving around in the same car he was going to
get... if so he was wrong.

~~~
fredophile
Why would he think it was neat that Elon had driven his car? If I was buying a
used car I'd be annoyed that someone else was adding extra mileage to the car
I'd purchased.

~~~
vanattab
I don't know. I would think it was kinda neat because I got alot of respect
for Elon but I would also kinda wonder about the extra mileage.

EDIT: Message to the down voters I am not saying its rational that I think it
would be kinda neat. I am just honest enough with myself to recognize that I
am not a purely logical beast.

------
Shivetya
While many bemoan the dealership models it is a dealership I once used to get
something done when all else seem to fail. There are far more good ones than
bad and big companies can effectively and afford to ignore a single consumer,
even a vocal one. So while there are some benefits of dealing directly with a
manufacturer it can also be insane at time how tone deaf they can be. Dealers
suffer this at times too but larger ones know the game and better yet know the
people to call. I had a North American rep calling me direct on my issue and
it was resolved.

Once Tesla ever moves into a large volume car I don't see how they will keep
up the image they portray. Its not that simple. Whats worse here is that they
have people who saw what was going on and it wasn't run up the flagpole fast
instead they tried to up sell the customer!!! Get real guys.

------
ck2
TIL even millionaires look for discounts on Teslas.

What Tesla did wasn't right but very hard to have a pity-party for Marty
Puranik.

~~~
dragontamer
> TIL even millionaires look for discounts on Teslas.

Read the "Millionaire next door". The vast majority of millionaires in the US
are just slightly above-average income folk who live below their income and
save appropriately.

If anything, the typical millionaire will look for discounts everywhere. On
the other hand, the "millionaire next door" doesn't buy Teslas, but instead
buys used cars.

~~~
ck2
Marty is not a "slightly above-average income folk".

Started and ran a large dial-up ISP in the 90s and adapted it into a full
blown hosting company when dial-up went away the next decade.

He's on a few "lists" of successful people and extremely well off which is why
it is strange to see someone like that shopping for what had to be only a
moderate discount on a used Tesla.

Again, none of this excuses what Tesla did, I just find his shopping habits to
be a little strange in his bracket.

The unlikely day I have that kind of money, the first thing I do is visit a
Tesla location and order a Model X

~~~
dragontamer
How do you think Marty got his business chops?

Successful business people are __always __working to get a discount, more
mileage for your money, etc. etc. Whether they are "working" or "leisure",
they invest, haggle, look for discounts, and everything.

Living successfully is partially a lifestyle choice. If you live it up and
party like you're a millionaire, you end up broke like the tons of Hollywood
celebrities or lottery winners who don't know how to manage cash. The vast
majority of millionaires are humble people who live below their means for
their whole life.

In part, because humble people who live below their means tend to be good
business owners. Having a solid grasp on the value of money is invaluable.
That part of his brain doesn't "turn off" because he's buying a car. If
anything, its working harder.

------
Arzh
That is a really weird experience. That being said one weird experience
doesn't mean a system is "horribly broken." You got into a weird hole, but how
many of these problems can really come up.

------
malchow
These problems suggest more to me about the immaturity of Tesla's Inventory
Car channel than about its customer support in general. There may be one
person spending 20% of his time on the loaner car sales channel at Tesla.

------
rdl
Pretty amazing how organizational incompetence took what could have been a
minor inconvenience or even a positive (your car gets driven by Elon for
50-100km is probably a plus, if it is already used) to a pissed off customer.

Otoh, I'd far prefer a company screw over a rich guy who is the very
definition of an equal party to contract/informed consumer. The "buy here pay
here" used car dealers catering to poor, relatively uninformed, and powerless
consumers do things far worse than this as routine business practice.

------
lectrick
You don't need the dual charger.

Source: Owner of a non-dual-charger who has literally never missed it. I
charge at 30mi/hr off a 220v dryer connection in my garage, what's not to
like?

------
agentgt
I wonder if Elon will respond with reasons given what happened to the New York
times guy: [https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-
drive](https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive)

Of course I have doubts the reporter was accurate but I do believe this guys
complaint sounds legit.

------
jdenning
I was thinking about buying a (edit: new) Tesla recently, and my main concern
was that one might have a difficult experience receiving the car after paying
a deposit well in advance.

Tesla - if you're reading this, this guy's experience has convinced me; I
won't be considering buying a Tesla again until you can buy one and drive off
with it that day.

~~~
giarc
>I won't be considering buying a Tesla again until you can buy one and drive
off with it that day.

Do you really want this? If this were true, you would be buying a car that x
number of people have test driven. It will come with 100+km on the odometer
already. If I'm spending $100k on a car, I'd rather a brand new vehicle that
was driven onto the truck, and off of the truck and by no one else.

~~~
Domenic_S
Why wouldn't they have a test-drive fleet (like they currently have) and keep
the plastic on the new cars?

~~~
giarc
Then they would have to keep stock at the 'dealerships'. They will soon have 3
models, with various configurations. Allowing enough selection for someone to
"drive off that day" with a car would require expansion of the dealerships.

------
tlow
I'm still waiting to hear if: 1\. This story is verified legitimate and then
if so 2\. Where's Tesla's response?

------
RankingMember
Reading this made it feel like everyone at Tesla is afraid of Elon Musk, which
hopefully is not the case. Not being able to talk honestly to a CEO (or
anyone) is how things fester.

~~~
dba7dba
Pretty sure most people at Tesla/SpaceX ARE afraid of Elon. Especially if you
have MBA :), which most senior people in a sales organization probably have.

------
devy
Has the OP tried to reach out to Tesla / Elon Musk on Twitter at all? I don't
know other channels, but Elon Mush is Twitter A LOT!

------
FussyZeus
This sounds like a completely innocent foulup (Musk taking the car, probably
without checking if it was sold) that was then handled in just the worst way
possible and snowballed into a ridiculous saga.

You cannot just NOT ANSWER a customer when you don't know what to do. You take
it to your superior, who takes it to theirs, who takes it to theirs. Simply
not answering the phone and hoping this guy would just be ok with losing 4
thousand dollars is certifiably insane, and whoever decided that should be the
course of action should be fired. That is NOT how you handle a customer.

At the very least he should've been offered either the car as is with a
discount, or a similar model for the same price. I'm sure he would've been
happy with either option, but the Tesla customer service staff utterly failed
him.

The existence of a sales channel is utterly irrelevant. He contracted with the
sales rep to buy THAT car at THAT price, that's what was agreed and Tesla did
not deliver. THEY need to make it work, not him.

------
jpeg_hero
Lol, guy angling for a free car.

Sorry your discount scheme didn't work out. Pay retail like the majority of
the retail public.

~~~
dkokelley
I'm sorry your comment is being buried, because I think you do bring up a good
point. This was not the usual Tesla process for purchases. The author wanted
an "inventory" car at a discount. Now because Tesla offers this option, they
are responsible for fulfilling the process, and the author's concerns do seem
valid. However, this is not the usual process for purchasing a Tesla, so it's
likely that this is not the usual experience for the "full retail" customers.

The CEO taking your car from the "inventory Tesla purchase program" is an edge
case of an edge case, so it makes sense that nobody knew what to do. The
process still needs to be fixed though.

~~~
dangrossman
This isn't a special process. "Buy New Today", "Buy Pre-Owned Today" (which is
where the showroom models are) and "Custom Order" are in the same top-level
menu on Tesla's website, which is where you buy their cars, whether you're at
home or in a showroom at their computer. Whichever you click, you choose a
car, make a deposit right there, and are given an order confirmation and an
account. It's the same process, and you have the same "full retail
experience", no matter which of the three pages you started your order at. He
even included screenshots of his account in the "My Tesla" portal, just like
any other customer that ordered a car from them.

~~~
dkokelley
While the "Buy Pre-Owned Today" option is given equal weight on the website, I
specifically am referring to what happens on the back end. When you buy new, a
new car is configured to your liking. I have to imagine Tesla's fulfillment
operations are arranged primarily around this case (take new "shell" car,
install customer-selected options, deliver to customer).

It's the same process only in what the customer sees. And I'll agree that the
customer should get a similar experience from a similar process. Tesla seems
to have failed in this case. However, it's clearly not the same process on
Tesla's end. Selling an inventory car is a subset of the pre-owned car sales
process, and selling a specific inventory car that was somehow (erroneously?)
available for R&D is a very specific case. Has the car been made road ready?
Have they removed any beta features that are not for the public?

This is a special process. However, since Tesla offers the option, it is their
responsibility to ensure they can deliver.

------
RubberShoes
#firstworldproblems

------
jacquesm
The only way that I can see this made right is that the guy gets a _free_
Tesla and lifetime-of-the-car free support and repairs on it. Inexcusable.

------
powera
This is _not_ the The Atlantic that you've heard of.

And i smell a rat. Has anyone else who has purchased a Tesla had even half as
many issues? I think this guy just worked things until he got some sales
schmuck to make him an offer too good to be true, and then it was. (Note the
several weeks to find a car. If Tesla sales are always months of back and
forth they have serious problems.)

~~~
Vik1ng

       Has anyone else who has purchased a Tesla had even half as many issues?
    

Well, I would hope Elon doesn't use already sold cars as prototype test
vehicles on a weekly basis.

------
Retric
I read this as: "I tried to save money and it backfired."

They have actual sales channels with real support, by sidestepping that and
your stuck in weird internal processes.

IMO, paying full price and just buying fewer things massively simplifies most
processes.

PS: That's not to say Tesla did a good job. Just that edge cases are often
fragile and it's a good idea to weigh your time vs. the actual savings.

~~~
dangrossman
The showroom inventory is an actual sales channel. It's not some back channel
insider process.

It's behind the "Buy Pre-Owned Today" link on Tesla's public website.

[https://www.teslamotors.com/models/preowned](https://www.teslamotors.com/models/preowned)

The site has one top-level menu where you can choose new, pre-owned or custom
to start your order. Everyone's in the same system.

~~~
Retric
There is generally a big internal difference between cars that are used by a
customer and cars used by the company.

Dealerships often deal with this for their internal loaner cars used when
someone is getting repairs vs. there normal inventory. He was buying a car
that was likely at a transmission point where the company was still using it
but it had entered there sales channel early.

------
solaris_2
I can understand being frustrated about being given the run-around when you
have deposited $4k for a really expensive car but I think this guy(Marty) is
an asshole:

1\. He posted this on his company blog. Not a personal blog, not medium but on
a company blog. I think he's hoping to get some business from the exposure.
I'd be planning to leave a company quickly if my boss posts personal rants
that are not business related on the company blog.

2\. He outed the one rep that told him the truth. He gave the date and the
name of the rep that told him Elon was driving the car. Why would you do
that?? Perhaps the reason why the other reps kept mum was because they knew
Marty was a difficult customer.

3\. He goes on about having a new baby, about how his electrician was calling
to install some power-ups in his garage. These things are not relevant to the
story. Simply tell your electrician the car has not arrived yet.

He also mentions that "In 21 years as a founder/CEO of my own company, dealing
with Tesla has been the most bizarre and strange experience I’ve had
interacting with another organization"

That simply cannot be true.

Bottom line: Marty thinks the world revolves around him and is really upset
Elon doesn't care about him.

~~~
travisby
Power-ups in the garage... for charging his Tesla? Sounds relevant.

