Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk has always had an unusual relationship with the media—and now he’s taking it a step further.
Journalists contacting Twitter for legal reasons now receive one more emoji in their inbox. A 💩.
fortune, as well as many other global news, have contacted droves of companies embattled times since Musk took over in October last year. Journalists ask for comments or background information on topics that are of great importance not only to the public but also to Musk’s staff.
Issues include mass layoffs, lawsuits, privacy for users and recently, a spat between Musk and a former staff member who questioned whether he was still working for the company because he hadn’t heard from Twitter’s HR team.
The SpaceX co-founder has reportedly fired at least half of Twitter’s staff since he took over. This apparently includes the communications team, along with teams covering human rights, machine learning ethics and accessibility.
Pravda
Musk, who this year broke the Guinness World Record for the largest personal wealth acquisition in history, promised in the past to support accurate reporting through the ‘Pravda’ content verification platform. The service, he said, will allow readers to “measure the core truth of an article and track the credibility score of each reporter, editor and publication.”
It’s unclear how the service will influence Musk. In response to a tweet by the former PayPal boss in 2018 about the launch of Pravda, one user wrote: “He’s not kidding. I saw that one of Musk’s agents had incorporated Pravda Corp in California last October [2017]. I wondered what it was all about.
Big news about the future of Twitter now released on its own platform by the CEO. Last year Musk promised to abide by the results of polls posted on the site, giving users the choice of Musk resigning or remaining.
After so many users voted for Musk to leave, he tweeted: “I’ll step down as CEO if I find someone stupid enough to take the job! After that, I’ll just run the software and server team.
It’s unclear how long Twitter’s new press policy will be in place. When contacted by fortune to the question of whether Twitter could change its emoji response policy for the benefit of users and staff in the future, he got a 💩 back.
How about Tesla and SpaceX?
Musk’s other title company has not yet confirmed whether it will implement a similar feedback system.
Tesla’s press team – the people responsible for responding to journalists’ questions and managing public perception of the company – is apparently disbanding in 2020. The move was first reported by electric transportation news outlets. electrIt said a source “at the highest level at Tesla” has confirmed the company does not have a PR team.
When contacted by fortune for comment, Tesla did not respond.
Questions were also previously directed to SpaceX regarding Starlink’s Global Roaming service, but received no response. When contacted by fortune to see if it will also launch an emoji reaction, SpaceX did not respond.