Tag Archives: jim farley

Professional Troll Elon Musk At It Again

In addition to Elon Musk’s title as CEO — sorry, Technoking — of Tesla, along with his role as boss of SpaceX, we need to add professional troll to his resume.

How else to explain his latest Twitter spat?

For those who didn’t see it, Ford chief Jim Farley tweeted out a video touting the brand’s new BlueCruise hands-free driving system that had what many interpreted as a subtle dig at Tesla.

Tesla, you see, has been accused, fairly in my view, of using its customers as unwitting guinea pigs in the testing of its so-called “Full-Self Driving” system.

We’ll pause here to note that there is no car on the market that offers true self-driving. A fully autonomous experience would be classified as level 5 autonomy, and no car is beyond level 2. Tesla’s system is level 2. Our friendly rivals at Jalopnik won’t even use Tesla’s terminology anymore because it’s misleading, and dangerously so, and as TTAC boss, I’ve been thinking of following suit. While we strive to be fair in our journalism, we also exist to report the truth, and the truth is that Tesla’s system isn’t full-self driving, no matter what it calls it. And Tesla’s marketing actually is dangerously misleading, since consumers might believe their cars can do more autonomous driving than they actually can, potentially leading to accidents.

So, Ford called Tesla out. And Musk clapped back with a clip from the 1995 comedy Tommy Boy, which starred Farley’s late cousin, Chris. The clip showed a scene from the movie in which the 1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX driven by the characters portrayed by Farley and David Spade experiences a hood malfunction at speed because Tommy Callahan Jr. (Farley) didn’t remove the oil can after a fuel stop.

At least one automotive reporter called out Musk on Twitter for being mean. As we all know, Farley died young of a drug overdose, and it’s arguably pretty awful to tease someone by dredging up footage of their late cousin acting in a movie — one in which he plays a guy who can be, at times, a bit of idiot.

That aside, it bugs me on another level. There’s a discourse now that pervades our politics, our sports, and almost everything else in which someone gets called out for doing something that most people would say is wrong — in Tesla’s case, using a marketing term that is misleading and dangerously so — and instead of working to correct the issue, decides to lash out in an attempt to hurt the critic.

In other words, instead of tweeting back at Ford, Musk should be working on either making FSD actually a truly self-driving system, or more realistically, coming up with a better name for it that doesn’t imply that it does more than it actually is capable of. Say what you want about BlueCruise or GM’s SuperCruise, neither implies that they are level 5 systems that allow the car to completely drive itself. And last I checked, GM’s Super Bowl ad made it clear SuperCruise only works on certain roads.

This is nothing new for Musk. But it’s intellectually dishonest bullshit and I am tired of it. As a society, we’ve spent too long now — at least half a decade — allowing powerful people to act like this when they’re called out or criticized. It’s childish behavior and we’re enabling it.

Musk isn’t the only one guilty of this. A certain ex-president is a master of it, as are certain politicians from both sides of the aisle, at all levels. Give me five minutes and I could think up a whole ton of athletes and celebs and pundits and contrarian journalists who embrace this type of behavior, especially on Twitter.

But since Musk runs the most divisive car company of our era, he’s our focus for this post.

I don’t know if what he tweeted to Farley is truly mean or not. Or if it is or isn’t funny.

I do know that it’s a deflection from Tesla’s misleading marketing, and that’s the problem.

[Image: Tesla]

Jim Farley is Allowed to Race, and The Detroit Free Press is Allowed to Write About It

Jim Farley. Image: Ford

Car Twitter is a weird, wonderful online “place”, but sometimes bad takes bubble up. And there’s a double-whammy of bad takery floating around this afternoon.

Take number one: Ford CEO Jim Farley is taking an unnecessary risk by racing cars that could hurt Ford should an accident leave him dead or too injured to work/lead the company, according to some experts interviewed by the Detroit Free Press for a story by Jamie LaReau.

Take number two: The Freep and/or Jamie are dumb for publishing/writing this article.

I do agree with the logic behind the arguments in favor of Farley racing, but that doesn’t make the Freep or LaReau dumb. It’s a reporter writing about what experts think. More on that in a sec.

The logic is this: Farley should be allowed to race because he’s a car guy and enthusiast and it’s arguably better to have a car enthusiast running a car company because a car enthusiast is more likely to understand a unique industry in which many purchase decisions are driven by emotion and/or if Ford is run by a car guy it means there will always be a place for performance cars in the company’s model lineup. Besides, the risk is low.

As I said above, in general, I agree with that, even though it’s not a given that a car guy will do a better job running a car company and/or keep performance cars alive. Just that it’s more likely. And racing today, even in vintage cars, is generally safe, although the risk of death and injury still does exist.

But to castigate the Freep for writing this story is a bit ridiculous.

There’s a “kill the messenger” critique of journalism that has existed for the past five years (and probably before that, but it’s been more noticeable since you-know-who and some of his partisan enablers took up arms against media that was fair and honest but critical). It’s not just relegated to politics — Elon Musk has rallied Tesla fanboys against media the same way, too.

In brief, this critique usually presents itself in one of two circumstances. Circumstance one: The subject of critical reporting deflects by accusing the outlet/journalist of bias and/or incompetence instead of addressing the criticism. Circumstance two: Journalist/outlet interviews a person/expert or multiple persons/experts, the reader doesn’t like what the interviewee(s) say, and instead of critiquing those who were interviewed and their claims, the reader moans that the outlet shouldn’t have published a story that dares to present an argument they don’t agree with — even if the outlet isn’t the one making the argument.

This is an example of the latter. What’s frustrating to me is that some of the annoyed Twitterati aren’t just car enthusiasts — they’re automotive journalists or people who work in the automotive media in some capacity.

In other words, people who should know better.

It would be one thing if LaReau was writing an opinion piece and got flayed for having a take that most people disagreed with. It’s an occupational hazard of writing op-eds. Y’all have flayed me a few times and that’s fine. You write an opinion column, you risk blowback.

But this is a feature story, not arguing either side. At least, LaReau doesn’t appear to be arguing either side — she quotes those who defend Farley’s racing, as well as those who think it’s not a good idea.

There’s also nothing in the piece that isn’t really true. Racing is risky, though far less so than it used to be. And none of the arguments from either side are way off-base. Regardless if you think Farley should race or not, all the arguments are valid.

To be clear, I am not defending LaReau for any personal reason — as small as this industry can be, I am not sure I’ve ever met her. I’d disclose if I knew her, or recuse myself from writing about this.

Has the discourse fallen this far? It’s bad enough that we flame each other, and cherry-pick facts, and fall for mis/disinformation, and that we’re often too tribal. Too often, people care more about “owning” and “destroying” someone in a discussion/debate to worry about being intellectually honest and reasonable.

All that makes for terrible discourse. And now we’re attacking writers and outlets for merely presenting an argument we mildly disagree with? Instead of attacking the argument itself?

This isn’t some free speech/First Amendment/cancel culture rant. The First Amendment doesn’t apply here, and there are some takes that do deserve to be shamed and scorned, and some takes that don’t deserve a platform (Holocaust denial comes to mind). I also think people are far too quick to scream “cancel culture” when someone gets deserved blowback for writing something truly terrible, especially if it’s bigoted in some way.

Obviously, tweeting out that the Freep shouldn’t have published this piece doesn’t rise to the level of screaming at some comic who said something transphobic or racist. But it’s still odd!

Why is so hard to argue that Farley should be allowed to race without suggesting the Freep shouldn’t publish a relatively harmless examination of how big companies insure CEOs who indulge in risky hobbies during their free time?

It’s actually an interesting dive into a part of the business I’ve never given much thought to before.

If you think some insurance experts (who, may I remind you, work for companies with a vested interest in NOT seeing their clients hurt pursuing risky fun during their off hours) are ninnies because they think it’s a bad idea for Farley to race, that’s fine.

Just don’t argue that the Freep can’t give those ninnies an interview because you’re such a ninny yourself that the mere suggestion that Farley hang up the Pilotis gives you the willies.

Yeah, that’s right. Don’t be a ninny.

[Image: Ford]