Fanbois and Fanbots: Tesla’s Entrepreneurial Narratives and Corporate Computational Propaganda on Social Media

Abstract

This paper reports the discovery of a series of computational social media accounts (Fanbots) on Twitter that may have played a critical role in sustaining the entrepreneurial narratives of Tesla, the electric-vehicle maker. From 2010 to 2020—a period of trial, error, and eventual success for Tesla—these computational agents generated pro-firm tweets (Corporate Computational Propaganda, CCP), accounting for more than 10% of the total Twitter activity that included the cashtag, $TSLA, and 23% of activity that included the hashtag, #TSLA. Though similar to programmed social media content in the political sphere, the activities of these accounts predate the existence of political computational propaganda associated with foreign support for, for instance, Brexit in the United Kingdom (2016) and Donald Trump in the United States (2016). The paper (a) characterizes the extent of Fanbot content in two large Tesla tweet corpora, (b) identifies possible motivations for the creation of these accounts in relation to the firm’s entrepreneurial narratives, and (c) explores possible mechanisms by which the Fanbots might have acted. Although we are unable to directly observe the source or stated purpose of these accounts, based upon the timing of Fanbot creation and other indirect indicators, we infer that these accounts and the social media activity they generated were intended to influence social perception of Tesla. The conclusion assesses the generalizability of a Fanbot-based strategy, highlighting contextual limitations, while also pointing to ways that firms may already be using CCP to manage social approval in emerging-industry contexts.

Keywords

• case study
• entrepreneurial narratives
• impression management
• computational propaganda
• industry emergence