Herbert Diess, boss of the Volkswagen group, joined Twitter on Wednesday and his first tweet was a light troll from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Hello @ Twitter! I’m here to make an impact on @VWGroup, especially on political issues, ”Diess said. wrote. ‘And of course to get some of your market share, @elonmusk – after all, our ID.3 and e-tron won the first markets in Europe. Looking forward to productive discussions! ”
Diess – who last year solved criminal charges in connection with his role in the Dieselgate emissions scandal – referred to how the first electric vehicles with mass market of its VW and Audi brands in Europe (and especially in Germany) in their debut year well danger. Tesla to lose market share on the continent. (To know: At the time of writing, Tesla has dropped prices on the Model 3 in Europe.)
Hello @ Twitter! I’m here to make an impact with @VWGroup, especially on political issues. And of course to get some of your market share, @elonmusk – after all, our ID.3 and e-tron won the first markets in Europe. Looking forward to productive discussions!
– Herbert Diess (@Herbert_Diess) 20 January 2021
Most car and other big brand executives use Twitter in a mandatory way. They make stately remarks about new products or initiatives, but are otherwise absent in the daily turnaround.
It’s hard to imagine Diess – who has praised Musk in the past – doing much other than tweeting playful jabs like those on Wednesday, let alone involving Musk on his terms with memes and scathing jokes. . First, Diess barely survived a major power struggle that played out within the Volkswagen group. While still the top boss, he was mainly relieved of his title as CEO of the VW brand due to the major software issues that ID 3 experienced during the launch.
Stranger things happened, but the idea that Diess – who apparently had his managers once attend an “integration workshop” – was unlikely to break. Musk, meanwhile, has spent nearly two years possibly violating a court order saying he was supposed to have tweets about Tesla investigated by a lawyer.
To Musk’s credit, he also spends a lot of time on Twitter responding to customers who have suggestions or complaints about Tesla’s products. In fact, it has become such a critical pipeline that Tesla’s energy division has hired expert service specialists over the past few months who are now helping to submit the requests. If Diess learns lessons on how to use Musk’s Twitter, it might be a good place to start given ID 3’s status.