How Should Automotive Media Cover Tesla?

Last week, standing at a podium with the seal of the President of the United States on it, the CEO of one of the world’s largest EV manufacturers stood and did the Nazi salute. Twice.

This was the most overt gesture he has done to date, and while he has openly supported the far-right AfD movement in Germany, allowed Nazis back on Twitter, and has generally seemed sympathetic to the plight of Nazis, this is the first in-your-face admission that he is what he appears to be.

In the aftermath, he says we just misinterpreted him. His mother, a supporter of Nazis herself (according to her ex-husband), claims it’s all bogus. But just like on January 6th, 2021, the people who saw the Sieg Heil knew what they were witnessing.

That’s a turning point. Prior actions could be disregarded and tossed to the side. Sure, Elon Musk is an anti-semite, but so was Henry Ford. Ferdinand Porsche was a member of the Nazi party and helped Adolf Hitler create the Volkswagen. What’s different now?

I watched, just a day later on social media, Edmunds.com reveal their EV of the year. It’s the updated Model 3. There’s no mention of Elon’s gesture. It appears to just assume that any old schmoe is running Tesla and whoever it is has no impact on the product itself.

Later in the week an embargo lifted on first looks at the new Tesla Model Y. Of the outlets that were allowed access, only one referred to the salute. While some of these videos were likely in the can before the gesture (just like the Edmunds content likely ways), it does beg the question, “Should automotive media change how they cover Tesla?”

There was plenty of time, of course, to put up a disclaimer saying this was shot before the events on January 20th, 2025, and it’d be a solid reason to give them a pass. But I didn’t see it, at least not yet.

The comments sections are littered with people saying how tone-deaf it is to drop this content so close to the salute. Others were making Nazi puns at the expense of the publication. While there are many coming to Elon’s defense, there are just as many people upset that the product was covered with no mention of all of the CEO’s Nazi-like tendencies.

So, again, should we change how we cover it?

For some insight, I shelled out U.S. greenbacks to gain access to the Autocar archive. The publication has been around since 1895, and you can view every issue from then until now. The search feature is okay-ish, so I set my sights on the mid-1930s and took a look.

(The web header image for this story is from the June 3rd, 1938 issue.)

Most German automotive coverage in that decade existed around the country’s participation in motorsports. But as Hitler amassed power as a dictator, mentions of him being a dictator are quite few. His disruption of Europe was noticeable in the pages, but the focus was around Volkswagen and whether Dr. Porsche would be able to make a car that costs £70.

At one point, there’s even a reference to how brave Herr Hitler is in trying to make this feat of engineering happen. Up until that point, the British were trying to get a car to the £100 price point but were unsuccessful.

As an aside, it is interesting to read about how people respond to blackout restrictions and fuel rations. It’s also fascinating to read about that, and then have a letter to the editor complaining how bicyclists break road rules.

At one point, near the end of 1939, the publication published a 3-part series from Mrs. Geoffrey Smith, about a trip she took with her husband in a Bentley for work around the International Six Days Motor Cycle Trial. While it is an interesting take on life on the continent just before the Nazis invade Poland, it’s also some of the most deranged stuff I think I’ve ever read.

Throughout the piece — again, over three whole issues — Mrs. Smith speaks about how she’s upset that potential war is ruining her holiday. The sausages in Austria aren’t as good as they used to be. The countryside doesn’t look as serene with bombers flying overhead. It’s silly that the boy who brought her breakfast had to carry her tray in one hand because he had to Sieg Heil with the other. She couldn’t go on a walk after dinner because the streetlights were out, but floodlights still lit up the Nazi flags in the center of town. Oh, there were so many flags.

Maybe it was satire and I just wasn’t understanding it? It’s the only thing that makes sense when such an elitist drivel is sharing pages with how to protect your family and how to continue working at your workbench at night with the blackouts.

What I think becomes obvious is that the editorial staff at Autocar didn’t recognize that the war was coming. I don’t think they expected it to get as bad as it did. I don’t think they recognized how dangerous Hitler was.

They talked about the engineering around Volkswagen the same way we talk about the engineering around Tesla. They talked about how Herr Hitler helped make cars affordable like how we used to talk about how Elon Musk made the industry recognize EVs as being a thing.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. As the world plunged into another great war, people were treating the dictator of Germany like any other world leader.

Elon Musk isn’t a world leader, at least in the eyes of people who aren’t him. While people often joke that he is the real president and that Donald Trump just does his bidding, the shambles of what remains of our constitution dictate that Musk isn’t in charge of anything.

I do think, though, that it would be unfair to compare Elon Musk to Ferdinand Porsche at the time. While it is true that he worked directly for the Nazis, and did jail time for it, he didn’t wield the same power over the government as Musk does today.

(I’m not saying Porsche gets a pass here, just like I don’t believe Henry Ford gets a pass, but the benefit of time, context, and the fact they are both dead is a differentiating factor here.)

So what do we do? Where do we go from here?

In trying to understand how the automotive press treated Hitler and the products coming from Nazi Germany, it’s clear that they didn’t realize at the time how bad things were going to get. They’re just trying to do their jobs day-to-day to the best of their ability.

Aside from a few poor editorial choices, it’s hard to fault them for that. Did treating the Volkswagen car as any other car, looking at it objectively, help the Nazis gain power? Not likely.

That’s where things are different. Buying a Tesla today directly supports the leader at the top. People should know that going into it. Plus, recommending a Tesla helps put money in the pocket of the CEO.

As for covering news, it 100% should require the context of the news of the day. For automotive reviews, I get the reluctance to want to bring that context into the equation. It’d be easier to talk about Tesla if the product wasn’t any good, but as I’ve mentioned many times before there are some things that the company does exceptionally well.

For those who do reviews, does the leader of the company’s beliefs have anything to do with the car being produced? If you asked directly, I’d say no. But the people today who are shocked by Elon’s behavior didn’t know any better because folks in automotive media decided that wasn’t worth talking about.

The funny thing is, if you can call it that, is that Musk probably isn’t actively doing anything at Tesla these days. A colleague suggested that Musk has had the least to do with the Model Y as any Tesla to date, and if you look at Musk’s Twitter profile right now (as I write this), he hasn’t mentioned the updated car at all. That seems odd considering the embargo dropped on it the day that I wrote this.

The problem is, of course, that he’s still the CEO of the company. Even if he’s the most absent CEO in the history of CEOs, he still financially benefits directly from every Tesla sold.

I’m not sure what the right answer is in all of this. I look back and see a lot of similarities between today, the past decade, and the 1930s in Europe. Is it head in the sand? Is it trying to protect its subscription count (today it’d be clicks)? Is it a belief that politics and vehicles don’t mix and that entertainment should be devoid of the darkness of reality?

As I often do, I look to a Star Trek quote for inspiration. Yes, I’m that nerd.

One of my favorites is in the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. Gabriel Lorca is trying to explain to Michael Burnham why he wants her on board Discovery despite all of the negative things she’s done. While we as the audience know, the in-universe characters do not.

Lorca — played by the incredible Jason Isaacs — tells her something that I’ll never forget.

Following the rules, and in this case, the prescribed norms, is for lackeys. It’s for followers. Context is for leaders. Context is for the educated. Context is for kings.

That’s why I think it’s important that we, as automotive media, bring that context into how we cover Tesla and Elon Musk. I think we should be bringing context into everything we write, shoot, or produce.

The Autogefühl video that talks about Elon Musk in addition to the Model Y aspect, pinned this at the top of their video in the comments section.

Some people want car reviews to be devoid of opinion or context. Those aren’t reviews. Tesla notwithstanding, it’s amazing what some people believe a review should be.

I think that not providing some sort of context when telling someone whether or not a car is good is not doing your job. If, in the context of being a parent, a car doesn’t fit a car seat well, it’s worth mentioning. Even if that’s not something you’d normally talk about in your day-to-day life.

If the Porsche 911 isn’t any good on the race track (stick with me here), then you mention that context even if you know very few 911 drivers will ever take their car to the track.

It’s no different here. When talking about a Tesla EV and if it’s any good, mentioning that the CEO might be a Nazi and that it’s viewed with a negative connotation out in public is something that should be mentioned. Getting your car keyed shouldn’t be the first time you realize that you bought a vehicle from a problematic CEO.

It shouldn’t matter, either, what the audience thinks about it. It shouldn’t matter if the comments section doesn’t like what you have to say. It shouldn’t even matter if it costs clicks, even though I know some publishers would take umbrage with that.

What leads to Lorca’s quote is important here, too.

You don’t need to denounce Elon Musk to do this effectively. You don’t need to call him a Nazi and make the entire piece about him and his beliefs. But you can provide the context of what he does, what he says, and how he reacts, to your content.

It doesn’t need to be difficult either. “Today, Tesla announced pricing for the Model Y that is coming to the United States later this year. While some things are changed, and some things are carried over, it’s worth mentioning that the CEO of Tesla has expressed some beliefs publicly that might be at odds with your own. You should know that going into to purchase the new car. Now, on to what’s new in the updated car.”

That’s probably not even the best way to word it, but you get the point. You can like the product — Tesla does make some interesting and solid EVs — and you can like aspects of the business. Just do it by providing the context that the industry has failed to do for the past decade. The same context that, if provided accurately by more media, might’ve prevented this fascist rise to power in the first place.