As the sun sets on another fun week in the world of public relations, here I am once again, ready to walk you through the hits and misses. It has been a quiet week on the big campaign front with the American election and American weather dominating the news agenda.

Musk takes a knock

Musk has for a long time been a big contributor to this column. Everyone’s favourite evil-genius has had another rollercoaster of a week. From being wheeled out to support Trump at recent rallies to then admitting during an interview that he may well go to jail unless Trump wins, he had had an interesting seven days.

He gives an update on his Tesla Taxi machinery this week which city-analysts are keen to hear. The outcome of that could swell or reduce his wealth accordingly.

In addition to this, the tech press spotted that his much-shouted-about offer of free Starlink internet access to those affected by the hurricanes and storms in America, was not quite as good as it first looked.

You can’t just find the closest satellite and join the service with your phone. You need to use their kit which will cost you circa $400, and then you can have free access to the satellite internet provider.

This was not in the small print and the media have gone to town on him for that. Another media outlet that went to town on him this week really surprised me. The hugely successful NewsAgents podcast, fronted by some of the UK’s most famous and respected journalists labelled Musk a “freak” and “weirdo”.

Now, I know many people think he is a smidge odd, myself included, but that kind of labelling by such a respected set of journalists seems a little over the top does it not? Maybe they are trying to cater for their new American audience?

Bad PR overall for Musk, unless Trump wins and then, well, we can only imagine his crowing over on X.

Sainsbury’s caught telling pork pies

Sticking with the theme of odd-labels and Sainsburys got pinged by a BBC FOI expose into Food Standards Authority stickers. To be fair, Sainsburys was one of many brands caught up in the BBC investigations.

You know those Food Standards rating stickers that you see on restaurant and shop windows? They go from a one rating (probably rats bumbling around) to a five rating (the lobster will always be fresh). Well, some restaurants and shops have been putting five star ratings on their doors when they have got nowhere near that level. Sainsburys included!

It was a strong story by the BBC and it got lots of pick up. Sainsburys took it on the chin and fixed the issue straight away. Some of the other outlets tried and failed to front it out. Good PR for the BBC, not so good for Sainsburys.

NHS not letting chippy owner off the hook

It is almost like there is a plan to the structure of this column! I am staying with the food theme. Morfa Bychan, a village in Gwynedd has a gaping void in its life. It has no fish and chip shop. A budding entrepreneur set about trying to solve this but has been blocked by… the local NHS authority.

The NHS has objected to the chippy being opened because of the lack of healthy foods on the menu. They want to see broccoli, carrots and far more healthier snacks than battered everything.

The locals are up in arms about the nanny-state approach of the NHS. The medical bods, who are the ones who have to fix the associated heart attacks after all, are sticking to their guns. The local council also said no to the chippy, but for far less controversial reasons; they were not happy about the potential for traffic issues around the take-away.

Although the local NHS took the reputational hit on this occasion, this is all part of the Welsh Government trying to health-up its residents. Fatty foods are being hidden in supermarkets and refills of sugary drinks in restaurants are also being banned. Long-term, it is going to pay off for Wales, in the short term, the nation is a chippy down.

FBI also telling (well-intentioned) pork pies

Long term sufferers of my writing may remember a story that got me put on a terror-group’s mailing list. That was a fun few weeks.

I am not going to go into the details, but it is related to the British intelligence services switching all the bomb-making instructions on a terrorist website that they hacked, to cake making recipes. It tickled me. The resulting conversations after the article was published did not tickle me.

Anyway, the FBI have done something similar this week with crypto-gangs. It is a bit techy but stick with me. Essentially, the FBI set up their own form of crypto currency that looked straight up (it was not called FBI-Coin). They then started looking for advisors who could get the value of the currency up using dodgy tactics. Otherwise known as “pump and dump” practices which are illegal.

They found several companies that would oblige and watched as the price of the FBI-Coin was falsely inflated using scammer tools. Once it reached a high value, the FBI swooped in and Scooby-Doo’d their coin brand to reveal who they really were. Boom. Four companies have now been charged and the directors face hefty jail time.

A great coup for the FBI, not least as this was a global operation.