Dan Neil doesn’t have time for twitter beef so instead of keeping his account open for Tesla haters to keep pestering him, he simply deactivated it.
Award-winning automotive journalist Dan Neil, for what looks like the first time, decided that his twitter handle being open wouldn’t be a sounding board for Tesla hate directed towards him and decided to deactivate his account instead. I’ve screengrabbed the most of Dan Neil’s Tweets thanks to Tesla Forum members including most of the tweets that probably drove Dan to deactivate his handle below.
Short Sellers drove WSJ Reviewer Dan Neil to deletion of his Twitter
Dan Neil published a Market Watch article of his driving impressions of the Tesla Model 3 Performance edition, the long-awaited one with two motors, mostly heaping praise onto this small yet powerful little electric car that he says would leave BMW M4’s in the dust.
The Tesla brand has its share of haters, but none have driven the new Model 3 Performance—until now. @DanNeilWSJ calls the car “magnificent” in its first-ever review. https://t.co/54lAEiJWl0
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) July 19, 2018
With two very divided camps when it comes to Tesla, a large majority ready with criticism on anything positive written about Tesla at a moment’s notice, it was only a matter of time before the real anti-Tesla zealots got a whiff of Dan Neil’s positive review.
Most of the tweets and the later backlash Dan received can be found if you read through the grocery list of replies on the official Tweet posted above from the Wall Street Journal.
Criticism was thrown Neil’s way on him being one of the few reviewers not to attend the Jaguar iPace launch in Portugal, which has little to do with his review.
Even more used Twitter as a never-ending sounding board citing critics and real-world examples of poor build quality of not just the Tesla Model 3, but the Model S and X as well as signs that this review was somehow tilted in the Tesla’s favor.
This is what happens when you advertise a 35k car that ends up being vaporware. https://t.co/npkHmW8xKX
— Sophia Helwani (@SophiaHelwani) July 19, 2018
Please… I’m not going to spend $60k on some non-union sloppy manfactured car. It looks like a cheap Kia and a Model S wannabe. I’ll sit this one out and wait for the ’19 Porsche like the other 25 percent that cancelled the deposit.
— Eric Soung (@esoung) July 20, 2018
$78,000!! you have to be F’ed in the head to buy that low quality POS.
— Marcel Bergeron (@slowjigger) July 19, 2018
It is what it is honestly. As you can see in Dan’s replies, he tried his best to cherry pick the most vitriolic tweets and reply to them as succinctly as possible. But with more flying in then he could reply, it was honestly a losing battle.
I’m pretty sure Dan will be back on twitter before you know it or not. With just 4,522 followers, it’s not like he had much skin in the game anyways.
I hope he keeps writing, though.
