Elon Musk’s Tesla electric-car and power company has been getting some bad press lately, and today the tech billionaire pushed back with a tweetstorm criticizing “the holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies” and laying out a plan for a crowdsourced media credibility rating site.

The fast-moving discussion suggests Musk is adding yet another venture to his smorgasbord, in addition to Tesla, SpaceX, the Boring Company, the Neuralink brain-computer interface company, flamethrowers, tequila, candy and his campaign to fend off an AI apocalypse.

Musk and other Tesla executives will also have to fend off an investor challenge at the company’s June 5 meeting, focused on questions relating to Tesla’s Autopilot sem-autonomous driving system as well as to the slower-than-expected ramp-up of Tesla Model 3 electric car production.

The news reports about such questions have caused Musk to gripe in the past, and the issue came to a head today when he retweeted an analyst’s assessment that the criticism was “increasingly immaterial” and that Tesla’s shares “could appreciate significantly with execution.”

Here’s how the tangled thread unwound on Twitter:

The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them https://t.co/Ay2DwCOMkr — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

I'm a fan of your's since reading the Wait But Why pieces, but I am really unhappy w tweets like this. Fanning the flames of the distrust of the media is a thing that authoritarians and demagogues do to ignore criticism and discredit opponents. It's a major problem of our times. — Teddy Monacelli (@teddymonacelli) May 23, 2018

The media has earned this mistrust. But maybe there is a solution. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Musk continues his slow transformation into a media-baiting Trump figure screaming irrationally about fake news. Hope it works out for you dude! https://t.co/CtHkOip747 — Andrew J. Hawkins 🚂🚇🚀 (@andyjayhawk) May 23, 2018

Thought you’d say that. Anytime anyone criticizes the media, the media shrieks “You’re just like Trump!” Why do you think he got elected in the first place? Because no ones believes you any more. You lost your credibility a long time ago. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

blaming the messenger is the hot new thing everyone's doing https://t.co/IJkOEBx4fo — J Emory Parker | Subscribe to The Post and Courier (@jaspar) May 23, 2018

Oh hey another sanctimonious media person who thinks he’s above criticism. Try being truthful & the public will believe you again. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Problem is journos are under constant pressure to get max clicks & earn advertising dollars or get fired. Tricky situation, as Tesla doesn’t advertise, but fossil fuel companies & gas/diesel car companies are among world’s biggest advertisers. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Oh is that the problem, Elon? @Reveal is a non profit, suffering from none of these problems. The ignorance this man displays daily of the journalism process is truly astounding. https://t.co/779hTkwNZ5 — Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) May 23, 2018

No, they’re just some rich kids in Berkeley who took their political science prof too seriously — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

I have never seen a more prolonged hissy fit than the one @elonmusk seems to repeat daily over entirely relevant and fair coverage of his company. It is a sight to behold, and a bad look. — Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) May 23, 2018

It is strange that big auto companies literally have thousands more factory injuries than Tesla & millions more auto deaths, but somehow get less coverage. We are not perfect, but we’re doing our best to make clean energy real & be a good company. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

We don’t. The media is reporting someone else saying that Tesla advertised. It is untrue. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

And yet, journos are very willing to pursue stories that burn advertisers and other financial benefactors. The @WSJ published the investigation that destroyed Theranos, even though Rupert Murdoch was Theranos's biggest investor ($125M) — daniel nguyen (╯°□°)ノ (@dancow) May 23, 2018

An exception that proves the rule — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

this is real lazy criticism yo. — codyb (@CodyBrown) May 23, 2018

Uh, this is Twitter. How many characters do you want? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Going to create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication. Thinking of calling it Pravda … — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Except much of the public appears not to care about core truth. 😐 — Victoria Morrison (@DetroitVictoria) May 23, 2018

Enough of the public does care about the truth. I have faith in the people. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Even if some of the public doesn’t care about the credibility score, the journalists, editors & publications will. It is how they define themselves. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Some journalist don’t have ability to write their own headlines though… — Scotch.io (@scotch_io) May 23, 2018

That’s why editors are included too — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Awesome, yelp for journalists. — Den Dal (@sakiwebo) May 23, 2018

Exactly — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

But trolls and spambots could ruin it. Need a good plan to counter them — Virtual Anomaly (@Virtualanom) May 23, 2018

Not only needs to be botproof, but seek & unmask anyone operating a disinformation bot army — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Maybe you should give the guys at Snopes or Politifact a call to help you with that. — Taylor Harris (@AntVenom) May 23, 2018

Maybe some good people from those orgs who would join — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Create a media credibility rating site (that also flags propaganda botnets) — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

please make it worldwide. People do care about truth,just that they don't have many sources to get it — Shashank Bhatia (@iShashankBhatia) May 23, 2018

Will do — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Should you let your workers unionize? — Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) May 23, 2018

I’ve never stopped a union vote nor removed a union. UAW abandoned this factory. Tesla arrived & gave people back their jobs. They haven’t forgotten UAW betrayed them. That’s why UAW can’t even get people to attend a free BBQ, let alone enough sigs for a vote. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Er, he's not kidding folks. I noticed that one of Musk's agents had incorporated Pravda Corp in California back in October last year. I was wondering what it was all about… https://t.co/y8xGGzwb3M pic.twitter.com/rTazUDUFMb — Mark Harris (@meharris) May 23, 2018

And just to confirm this, a follow-up filing in November stated the company's business activities as "Media". Which I guess means you'll be able to rate Pravda on Pravda? https://t.co/KT28zacRpo pic.twitter.com/QeApne3itg — Mark Harris (@meharris) May 23, 2018

Of course — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

If you’re in media & don’t want Pravda to exist, write an article telling your readers to vote against it … — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

The California corporate information form says Pravda Corp.’s president is Jared Birchall, who happens to be Neuralink’s president as well.

If Musk does go with Pravda, that’d set an unfortunate precedent: Few veterans of the Cold War will forget that Pravda was the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party between 1918 and the Soviet breakup in 1991.

“Pravda” is also the Russian word for “truth,” which was an ironic name even for the Soviets. A famous phrase played off the lack of truth in official papers such as Pravda and Izvestia (which means “news” in Russian): “There is no news in Pravda, and no truth in Izvestia.”

After the Soviet breakup, the publication’s online presence devolved into a notorious clickbait factory.

It’s great that Musk is interested in supporting reality checks amid the “fake news” crisis, but crowdsourcing may not be the best way to do it. Supporting the independent organizations that already exist, including Snopes and Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact, would be a better way to go.

For more about countering the ills of the information business, check out this discussion from last year’s GeekWire Summit:

Update for 6:50 p.m. PT May 23: Musk is still tweeting about the media-watchdog idea. He says calling it Pravda was just a joke, despite the corporate filings. “I thought it was so obvious,” he tweeted. Here are some more chirps:

Maybe the media credibility rating site should be called “You’re Right!” I do actually own https://t.co/1JqqCF9inA, but for the moment I just have it automatically forward to Facebook News. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2018

Dear @elonmusk this media lady hereby invites you to Code next week to talk about Pravda. Btw, I am not a bot, although I know I am 50 times more irritating than one. https://t.co/S7V5SpHAXO — Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) May 23, 2018