Automotive News tiptoes around a potentially huge conflict of interest

The American automotive media has paid relatively little attention to the 2024 presidential race despite some observers suggesting that it could be unusually consequential. Andrew J. Hawkins (2024) concluded that this “election will decide what kind of car you’ll buy” because the two leading candidates have such starkly opposing views on the automobile industry.

Some political observers have gone even further, arguing that the election’s outcome could significantly influence the health of our democracy. For example, The New York Times (2024) editorial board insisted that the stakes were so high that “business leaders cannot afford to stand passive and silent.”

As a case in point, a Times investigative report analyzed the potential impact of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump promising to appoint Tesla head Elon Musk to lead a “government efficiency commission.” This panel would have the power to recommend major budget cuts and change regulatory rules in federal agencies.

“That would essentially give the world’s richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest,” wrote a reporting team led by Eric Lipton (2024). The Times story went on to document the numerous ways that the companies run by Musk are either regulated by or work for a veritable alphabet soup of federal agencies.

U.S. Capitol at the 1889 inauguration of President Benjamin Harrison (U.S. House of Representatives Collection, 2021).

What could possibly go wrong?

Musk is clearly thinking big. In a news conference last month he stated, “If Trump wins, we do have an opportunity to do kind of a once in a lifetime deregulation and reduction in the size of the government” (Lipton, 2024). More recently Musk said that he could cut federal spending by a third (Delaney and Nicholson, 2024).

Let’s put aside the question of what qualifies Musk to reorganize as big and complex of an entity as the federal government. Public policy professor Don Moynihan (2024) argued that giving “Musk more power over government officials would be a disaster for regulation and accountability. Research shows that a more politicized government leads to government having less capacity and greater partisan favoritism in spending, resulting in higher costs, not greater efficiency.”

Welcome to crony capitalism, which is when some businesses gain governmental advantages that undercut competition (Wikipedia, 2024).

Also see ‘Automotive News’ sense of urgency on climate change amounts to empty words’

Automotive News actually covered this topic. Well, sort of. Reporter Larry P. Lellequette (2024) wrote an opinion column. After summarizing the above Times article he concluded, “The notion that [Musk] might use his newfound power to test self-driving cars with software and hardware that’s already resulted in deaths leaves me feeling queasy — not just as a journalist, but as a motorist.” Lellequette added that rival automakers might also feel uneasy about Musk’s potential conflicts of interest.

This is a big enough issue that Automotive News should have published at least one hard-news story — and perhaps even an unsigned editorial. Instead, it snuck the topic into the paper through the back door. Another profile in courage.

I am not surprised. The American automotive media has long tilted toward pumping out thinly disguised public relations rather than serious journalism.

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6 Comments

  1. Well, the auto mags aren’t going to bite the hand that feed them. You want accurate unbiased car information read Consumer Reports, right next to the blender ratings. Look, full disclosure here. I am probably the most left of the regulars here, so take this as you will. It’s time we started calling guys like Musk, Bezos, etc what they really are: Oligarchs.

    • Musk’s activities Sunday night at The Fascist’s Madison Square Garden Nazi Bund Rally absolutely ensured that I will never own a Tesla. -Ever- I’d sooner buy a added range Leaf (my Nissan dealer has a free Supercharger at the dealer if you buy) than a Tesla or a used Chevy EV.

      The fool should have kept his mouth shut.

    • In what are often described as the good-old days, the car-buff magazines mainly functioned as “entertainment for men.” With the rise of the Internet that has changed somewhat, perhaps partly because of the demand for a 24/7 flow of content. Some websites do a bit better job than others in covering hard news, but the bar is still fairly low — even for the larger trade journals such as Automotive News. After all these years, the focus is still on moving the metal.

      I think it can be valuable to look at how the structure of an organization can color its actions. While one could criticize Consumer Reports for a variety of things, its road tests can be more objective because it does not generate revenue from advertising, it buys test cars anonymously off dealer lots, and the magazine is run by a nonprofit organization.

      One additional advantage: Because Consumer Reports doesn’t just focus on cars, it can more easily avoid succumbing to Detroit groupthink. People who spend all day hanging out (in person or virtually) with auto-industry types will tend to acculturate over time. That’s one reason why I only work on Indie Auto on a part-time basis.

  2. Fascism came from the word “fascio” or bundle- the symbol of the French Revolution. Mussolini liked the sound of the word. He also coined the term “totalitarian state” to express his ideal.”Everything inside the state, nothing outside the state”. In Spain, the communists and socialists have have described the far-right Vox party as fascist. Recently, a Vox party leader wrote a letter to the WSJ explaining that their platform calls for a 50% reduction in the Italian bureaucracy. Trump is also planning a mass firing of federal burueacrats. Musk wants to help. The government is bloated. My uncle was a Rooseveltian bureaucrat. In 1959, he would have weekly one-to-one meetings with Vice President Nixon. Can you imagine such a thing happening today? Finally, the Germans and the Japanese decimated out domestic luxury brands. Tesla is an American luxury brand that is outselling the foreign competition. Kudos to Musk for accomplishing this feat.

    • You can be a conservative who prefers smaller government while also opposing crony capitalism. You can be in favor of streamlining federal agencies while wanting such efforts to be led by people with enough background to do it intelligently. One unfortunate result of the recent tech boom is that it seems to have cultivated the idea that just because someone was successful at building a company focused in one market niche that those skills are widely transferable — particularly to the political realm.

  3. Also relevant to an automotive website would be the differences between the candidates/parties as far as gas mileage & electrification mandates/goals/timing would be.

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