September 7, 2018, will be Sarah O’Brien’s last day as Tesla’s VP for Communications, a job that even the best communications professionals in the industry might be reluctant to take. Aside from handling the whiplash of Musk’s frequently controversial tweets, O’Brien’s job involves dealing with the harsh spotlight of mainstream news and opinion. Everyday.
Add the fact that the company spends little to nothing on traditional advertising and marketing channels and what you have is an extremely high pressure job in an environment that’s more often biased against the company and its vocally contentious CEO than supportive of them.
That mantle will now be bestowed on Dave Arnold, Sr. Director of Global Communications. Not a job to envy by any means.
One of the biggest challenges for Arnold as takes on O’Brien’s responsibilities will be to maintain a neutral tone in the face of severe criticism. A constant barrage of negative outpourings from social and mainstream media channels is already the order of the day, and the recent ‘unnatural birth and death’ of Musk’s take-private plan for Tesla is already being bombarded with a wave of post-mortem analyses and ‘I told you so’s from every quarter possible.
It’s going to be a tightrope walk for Arnold because Tesla has always depended on word-of-mouth, the media and their products themselves as key promotional tools, yet it is one of the most highly criticized companies of all time. Musk’s periodic (and unreviewed) tweets are bound to give Arnold more than a few sleepless nights, as would have doubtless been the case with O’Brien. Moreover, the company’s social posturing is as critical as its earnings report, and this will be Arnold’s first time at the helm during a quarterly call.
Hopefully, any negative repercussions of the kind Tesla is used to will be mitigated if the company meets its guidance of being profitable in Q3. The Model 3’s recent production and delivery gains are the biggest contributors to making that happen. If it does happen, and we think there’s no reason it won’t, then the focus will quickly shift away from what many are seeing as Musk’s daring but failed attempt to nullify the short-seller narrative and the constraints of running a public company.
For now, Arnold’s job will be to attempt to keep that narrative on a leash until everyone’s focus transitions from ‘here’s every way Tesla can fail’ to ‘how Tesla can sustain its profitability.’ Without a doubt, that’s a much better situation to be in than what O’Brien had to deal with over the past two years.
Per LinkedIn, Sarah O’Brien came over from Apple, Inc. about two years ago. O’Brien was with Apple for nearly nine years before moving to Tesla as Sr. Director of Communications in September 2016. She was promoted to VP Communications in August 2017. Dave Arnold came on board in January 2017 as Global Communications Director. His previous position was Director of Corporate Communications at Virgin America.
