Mr. Herbert Diess, the owner of one of the most famous automobile companies in the world- Volkswagen, has finally open his own Twitter account and he decided his first tweet should be a subtle troll against CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk.
He said, “Hello @Twitter! I’m here to make an impact with @VWGroup, especially on political issues,” Diess wrote. “And, of course, to get some of your market shares, @elonmusk – after all, our ID.3 and e-tron have won the first markets in Europe. Looking forward to productive discussions!”
Trinity comes after NEO (ID.-Project) and will revolutionize Volkswagen – and especially Wolfsburg even more! A huge challenge for our most traditional and historic site to compete against a greenfield in Grünheide. But we take on the challenge!
— Herbert Diess (@Herbert_Diess) January 21, 2021
The Volkswagen Boss had just settled with the scandal relating him to the crime in Dieselgate Emissions scandal last year. In his tweet, he intended to talk about how the first of its market types, the electric vehicles by Volkswagen and Audi had a huge success in Europe, particularly in Germany during their debut year and how Tesla had to face a hard hit in the market pertaining to the continent because of it. (To wit, while writing this, Tesla dropped prices on the Model 3 in Europe.)
Most of the brands use their official social media handles to keep a direct communication line with the people and their customers, often in a required manner only to issue comments on new products, new updates or on particular issues. They generally refrain from making comments on their peers and competitors.
Who is to say that behind all the praises that Diess has showered upon Musk in the past, is involved in such playful trolling like the one made last Wednesday. It may be so that their relationship is based purely on these jabs and professional comments and exclude instances such as engaging with Musk on his terms with memes and snark and stock price-moving jokes.
Hello @Twitter! I’m here to make an impact with @VWGroup, especially on political issues. And, of course, to get some of your market shares, @elonmusk – after all, our ID.3 and e-tron have won the first markets in Europe. Looking forward to productive discussions!
— Herbert Diess (@Herbert_Diess) January 20, 2021
Diess is one of the few who has had to struggle with the power group happening within Volkswagen and facing harsh criticism by people around the world. Although he does continue to keep his position as the boss, he was stripped off the title of CEO for his involvement in the software issues in the ID 3 during its debut.
This may not have been the strangest things that have happened in the recent past for both the companies in question. Diess had once made the executives of his company attend a syntegration program and on the other hand, Musk was the one who violated the court’s order for two straight years which ordered him to get his tweets screened and cross-checked by a lawyer before uploading them.
Elon Musk has also spent quite some time on Twitter, responding to every customer who has positive criticism and suggestions regarding Tesla’s products. This has also faced some backlash from people saying that Tesla’s work and energy was being spent on hiring customer service specialists to work on the respective fields.
Hence, Diess might as well learn lessons on how to use Twitter from Musk, given the current state of the ID 3.
