Elon Musk’s mom Maye called out the media for spreading misinformation and dishonest headlines about Tesla recall
Daniel Levi
Posted On February 3, 2022
Even if you’ve been living under a rock, the news of Tesla’s recall has taken over the headlines. You know it’s bad for the mainstream media when the mom of the richest person in the world has to step in and call out the media for spreading misinformation and dishonest headlines.
In what seems like a coordinated effort, major news outlets including ABC, CNN, CNBC, Reuters, and others reported that “Tesla is recalling more than 817,000 vehicles in the U.S. because the seat belt reminder chimes may not sound when the vehicles are started and the driver hasn’t buckled up.”
As CNBC reported, “The recall covers the 2021 and 2022 Model S sedan and Model X SUV, as well as the 2017 through 2022 Model 3 sedan and 2020 through 2022 Model Y SUV, according to documents posted Thursday by safety regulators.”
However, what the news outlets failed to mention is that this is not a traditional physical car recall. Instead, what Tesla is really doing to fix the seat belt reminder chimes problem is “by sending out an over the air software update to the affected cars without having to move their cars physically to Tesla service locations.
Unfortunately, this piece of information is buried almost at the bottom of news articles. For example, here is how CNBC describes the fix.
“Tesla will fix the problem by sending out an over the air software update early this month. The safety agency says without the chime, a driver may not know their seat belt is unbuckled, increasing the risk of injury during a crash.”
Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. However, Elon Musk’s mom Maye won’t let the media get away with it. In a post on Twitter earlier this afternoon, Maye accused the media of spreading dishonest headlines and asking them to issue an apology.
“Perhaps this grandmother can help the media with honest headlines. It’s not @Tesla “recall”, it’s “software update”. @barronsonline @TheStreet @Reuters @cnbc @CNN @ABC @MarketWatch @Jalopnik. Feel free to apologize”
https://twitter.com/mayemusk/status/1489337696606580736
As of the time writing, none of the media outlets mentioned in Maye’s tweet has issued an apology. We will continue to follow the story and keep you updated.
