SUN DOWN: Tron CEO Justin Sun Blows It On Tesla Giveaway; CT Pounces **Tron and Sun Responds**
The current mess that is a marketing schtick gone wrong at Tron is causing many to doubt the viability of the project and the veracity of its leader, Justin Sun. A Tron giveaway that clearly included a Tesla has backfired in a big way. And all of CT is currently trading memes as the mess is still all over the CT streets.
As it became clear that Tron and Sun didn’t have an immediate intention to make the winner of the contest whole by allotting the grand prize of a Tesla, CT called them out in every corner of the globe.
It is exceptionally rare to get CT to universally agree on anything. This face-palm of a PR screw up has brought all manner of factions together to point and yell ‘boo this man!’
The meat of the issue is this: Justin and the Tron team ran a contest with a prize named to be a Tesla vehicle. A twitter user XRP_UzGar clearly won the contest and should’ve been awarded the grand prize, a Tesla.
“Instead, Justin Sun backtracked and offered him this: However, I do recognize that this is an unfortunate situation, and would like to extend my warmest welcome to the next #niTROn summit in 2020, including a fully paid round-trip ticket to the event location. We are very grateful for your continued support. #TRON”
So instead of a Tesla the winner has been awarded tickets to fly around the world (next year, we might add) to hear and see Justin Sun speak. Ugh.
**Developing…
And as of the last hour Tron and Justin Sun have reversed course:
I’ve happily decided to give away two Teslas to further my mission of creating transparency, reliability and openness about blockchain. I want to explain openly and clearly what happened with the giveaway I announced earlier to clear up some confusion.
To generate better awareness of the blockchain industry and celebrate the introduction our USDT-TRON stablecoin to everyone in the world, I personally decided earlier this month to give away two cars — a Mini in China, and a Tesla for the rest of the world. I created pretty simple rules that I expected to generate excitement and get more engagement for the industry and stablecoin in general.
On Monday, my team on Weibo gave away the Mini through Weibo, and the community has responded happily. The draw brought great, positive attention to the industry. On Twitter, the team used a tweet randomizer tool because Twitter does not have an official drawing mechanism. The team was unfamiliar with the tool and performed a number of test draws to understand how it worked, which has led to some misunderstandings about how we did what we did. We also were unaware there would be concern about the video not being live-streamed and that it would create ambiguity and controversy.
To address those concerns, I decided to create a live-streamed draw to show we are open about everything we do. The person picked in that draw has already contacted us and will receive the Tesla. I’ve also decided to give a Tesla to .
I spent many hours thinking of ways to show how blockchain and the newly launched TRON stablecoin will be a game-changer for both consumers and businesses. I take that seriously; we will more than likely have a few setbacks along the way. The team has taken some learnings from this, and we are more than happy to collaborate with Twitter and third-party developers to have good mechanisms to select winners (maybe even powered by blockchain technology!)
I personally believe the industry needs to have more transparency, reliability, and openness so that people both inside the industry and out trust blockchain in general and TRON in particular. My mission is to create positive change, and I hope people will continue to join that crusade.
Justin Sun
