Tesla CEO Elon Musk Says Honda Buys 'Lot Of Advertising' And 'Silence Of The Media' Amid Alleged Underreporting Of Vehicle Recall

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Thursday pinned the lack of media coverage on Honda Motor Co‘s HMC recent recall of over 2.5 million vehicles to its advertising budget.

What Happened: Musk said in a post on X that the Japanese automaker buys a lot of advertising, thereby silencing the media on its recalls. The CEO was responding to a Tesla enthusiast who said that every media outlet would have covered the news had Tesla recalled 2.5 million vehicles instead of Honda.

Honda issued a recall for over 2.5 million vehicles in late December citing a fuel pump failure that may cause the engine to stall while driving. The recall included several model year 2017-2020 Acura and Honda vehicles.

A few days before that, Tesla issued a ‘recall’ for over 2 million vehicles equipped with all versions of Autosteer after deeming the feature’s controls to be insufficient to prevent misuse. The company issued a software update to fix the issue.

Tesla enthusiasts and executives likewise criticized the use of the word ‘recall’ in media coverage at the time saying that it involved no physical recall of the vehicles but only a software update.

Honda Vs Tesla In Advertising: Companies mostly list advertising costs under selling, general, and administrative (SGA) expenses in their income statements. For the quarter that ended Sept. 30, Tesla reported SGA costs of 1,253 million while Honda reported expenses of 582,171 million yen or $4,016.5 million.

However, how much of these expenses were for advertising alone is unknown.

Honda did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment.

Image Credits – Shutterstock

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