Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Tesla appears to be quietly rebooting its press team, as a new media job listing can now be seen on the company’s website.
After Tesla made headlines for disbanding its public relations and media team A little over four years later, the company now appears to be revving up its media relations efforts with a Vehicle Communications Manager position listed on its careers page. The job is based at the company’s Fremont, California factory, and her responsibilities include overseeing public-facing media initiatives aligned with Tesla products.
In the job description, Tesla writes the following:
As the Vehicle Communications Manager, you will be responsible for managing all external communications related to vehicle programs and coordinating efforts with external media outlets. This includes working closely with technical staff on vehicle metrics, managing external vehicle data for consistency and accuracy, approving website content and ensuring external media access information to evaluate the product.
Your work will include advising on new product goal setting and evaluating program developments as an early customer ambassador. You will work closely with a wide range of technical and business groups in addition to automotive program leaders, vehicle technical leaders and company leaders to align public data and help the world appreciate the impact of Tesla products.
You can see the full list of Vehicle Communications Manager jobs here on the Tesla website.
Tesla hasn’t had any kind of traditional PR team for the past few years, so this list is definitely a departure from the social-only ethos that’s been in place since late 2020. The dissolution of the PR department was expected to be replaced with social networks, and Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, while many Tesla executives also began to be more active on the platform.
It’s also unclear whether Tesla will hire more employees to work under the larger umbrella of the press office, or if the company will maintain just a vehicle communications manager. In any case, many investors, journalists and general enthusiasts in the Tesla community have called for Tesla to reboot its PR initiatives, so it seems that the company may be responding to those requests or is simply preparing for the next phase of growth with such a team.
After the decision in late 2020, Elon Musk doubled down on the reasoning behind his move, highlighting citizen journalism and Tesla’s focus on the product as key reasons for getting rid of the PR team. Since that time Musk has regularly defended a model in which executives and employees respond directly to requests for Xinstead of the more traditional model using a press department.
Other companies spend money on advertising and manipulating public opinion, Tesla focuses on the product.
I believe the people.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2021
In April Tesla also began mass layoffs, including its advertising groupjust six months or so after the company began its comeback promotional efforts after a similar turnaround before that with his media team. Musk talked about launching “small-scale” advertising last year, and that strategy seemed to continue even after the layoffs earlier this year.
What do you think? Let me know at zach@teslarati.comfind me on X y @zacharyviscontior send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.
