That's exactly what it was. The article didn't include any information about why the department was shut down, what event's lead up to what appears to be a clusterfuck, or any questions presented to Tesla. It was clearly designed to put Tesla and Musk in the worst light possible, and including the story from the alleged ex employee was done for no other reason than to demonstrate the damage done by the evil Musk and his cabal of villain's.It’s really on brand for you to refer to the real world impacts of Musk’s poor decision making and frankly shit business sense as “a nice bit of theater”.
That isn't journalism. The story left out more information than it included, and was entirely one sided. My high school newspaper did better reporting than that, and we were all stoned.