The Best Lesson In Transforming A PR Disaster Into An Absolute Triumph You’ll Ever Read

I’m sure you’re already well versed with who Elon Musk is – a South African born entrepreneur, father of five and one of the world’s youngest and most influential billionaires. His passion lies in technology – specifically taking well-established structures and throwing them on their head by achieving what others can barely even conceive of. He was the brains and co-founder behind PayPal, he’s the visionary behind Space X (a space exploration company revolutionizing rockets and outer space travel), and he also happens to be the CEO and CTO of Tesla Motors – who, unless you’ve been hiding under as rock, you know designs, manufactures and sells electric cars. Just about a week ago disaster struck at Tesla as one of their cars, while traveling down the highway struck a metal object and caught on fire – with the driver still inside. Below is a copy of the letter Elon wrote explaining the incident, as well as copies of the letter Tesla sent to the driver after the incident, and the driver’s response. They are the best example of turning a PR nightmare into a major triumph that you’re likely to ever come across. I have highlighted the parts of the letters in bold that are particularly insightful.

Tesla also released their correspondence with the Tesla owner who had the accident (released with the owner’s permission):

The market seems to like Tesla’s explanations with Tesla shares up an average of 4.4%!