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Elon Musk Cancels Stewart Alsop's Tesla Order Over Complaints About Launch Event
New submitter umafuckit writes: Blogger Stewart Alsop wrote an open letter to Elon Musk following a supposedly badly run launch event for the Model X. Alsop complained that the event started almost 2 hours late and was unable to test drive the car (for which has put down a deposit). In response, Musk cancelled Alsop's pre-order saying "Must be a slow news day if denying service to a super rude customer gets this much attention." Alsop, who is known not just for his prolific blogging but for his role as a founding partner at VC firm Alsop Louie Partners, compares his treatment by Tesla to that of BMW, about which he's also said some unflattering things as a customer.
Poetic justice.
I watched the video of it and Musk may well have held it in a monkey enclosure. I've never seen an audience react like that, hooting and howling over every word he said. The car is nice I guess but the audience reaction was ridiculous.
Gee, not one, but two companies with waiting lists to buy their luxury cars declined to go out of their way to pamper your spoiled ass?
Notice a pattern here, Stewart?
If you think about it, preordering a product is a financial transaction. You're exchanging money (the $5000 deposit) for a place in line. While the amount the deposit costs doesn't usually change over time, the earlier you preorder, the bigger the risk you are taking because the promised product may never arrive. So in return for this transaction, you get an earlier place in line. Tesla gains money and a large number of preorders has a "signaling" effect to other buyers, increasing interest in the product.
In actual monetary value, Stewart's preorder slot is now worth more than $5000. If he could auction the slot off, people would be willing to pay a premium so they can have their Model X sooner.
Anyways, by canceling the order, Tesla has deprived Stewart of his property, and he might be forced to turn to the courts to be made whole. I'm not a lawyer, I know the property loss is true in real economic terms but no doubt the actual interpretation of the law is a different story.
One of the things about harassment is that you as an employer are liable for 3rd parties harassing your employees because you have a duty towards your employees.
So if Musk has any reason to believe based on this guy's behavior that this guy will be harassing his employees, he actually has a legal obligation to kick this guy to the curb.
He's mad that out of 3000 (or was it 5000) people he was #1344 in line to test drive.
Boo hoo. That means you're still ahead of at least half of the people. Sure, 1000+ people aren't going to get to test drive a car in one night...we get that. Why exactly does he feel that entitled and special that, of all the other thousands of people who put down a deposit, he should be a priority?
I'd bet he is (well, was) the 1344th person to put a deposit on the X.
Folks like to use privilege and entitlement as dirty words these days...well THIS is a PERFECT example. Some peoples business is not worth taking, case and point.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
I blog, therefore I demand. When I don't get, I blog even more.
People who say what GP says either don't have a job or haven't ever worked with actual customers before.
I am a person, and I work for a corporation. And just because I work for a corporation doesn't mean customers have the right to treat me like shit. Corporations I've worked at almost always have provisions where if a customer is obviously unruly and harassing you then you can refuse to provide service to them and you won't get any shit for it from either HR or your boss. In fact you might even get bonus points if you diffuse the situation with good tact while still not providing any services.
I am a person, and I buy from a corporation. And just because I buy from a corporation doesn't mean the employees have the right to treat me like shit. Corporations I've bought from almost always have provisions where if the corporation treats you poorly and fails to live up to the expectations they set then you get an even-handed response to your complaint and the corporation attempts to repair the relationship with the customer and institute changes to avoid such a situation in the future.
The employees have every right to treat you like shit. Just because they work for some corporation doesn't mean they lose their rights. They have just as much right as I do to treat you like the total dick bag you seem to be (I'm kidding, just proving a point). Corporations are under no law to have customer relations departments to try and satisfy customers. Some do and some don't, it depends on how much they care about customer retention. I am guessing Musk could care less if this rich asshole is his customer.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
It's not like there can be only one asshole. Furthermore, it depends why he was late. IF he was late because he just doesn't give a fuck about making people wait, then he's an asshole. Why was he late? I have no idea. People are late for all kinds of reasons good and bad. Writing a shitty open letter also makes you an asshole. What are the circumstances that cause someone to write a shitty letter other than being an asshole? Death in the family? Brain tumor? No clue, but I'm willing to bet it's just that he's an asshole with a false sense of entitlement.
Ray Crock's principle of "The Customer is always right" is great until the customer comes to believe that this should be the case every time.
I'm sure we've all experienced them before. I remember this stupid bitch at a touristy location begging for the operator of a Segway hire place to let her young children have a go (rules were you had to be over 12). So after being bullied, the operator gives in (these kids looked about 6 or 7), but only to be barraged again because they can't find a helmet to fit her kid's tiny heads. The operator puts on the smallest helmets which just hang over the kids faces obstructing their vision, so the women is now complaining loudly that they shouldn't have to wear helmets because they don't fit.
Never underestimate the stupidity of some people. Elon gave this guy what he deserves.