Bezos, Musk, Cook— these have become the household names of today. Big tech CEOs are one of the media’s favorite topics, and whether they’re currently leading companies or not, they’re constantly in the public eye. Their leadership practices, acts of authority, or leisurely antics are covered in scrutiny and awe, all adding to their influence.
To give some content to this coverage, we took a look at some of the most engaged stories about tech CEOs in the past month, and highlighted two individuals who have made a splash in the headlines on their own.
Let’s take a look at the data:
Since August 1st, there have been 49.5k articles published on tech CEOs in general, generating 4.34M engagements. Public interest peaked a few times, with one of the major peaks coming on August 20th when Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced his company will be releasing humanoid robots within the next year. The top articles about this narrative had 36.5k interactions.
Top articles about big tech CEOs
The top stories about big tech CEOs this month mostly revolve around Tesla’s Elon Musk and former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Musk and Bezos topped the charts with four respective articles each. IGN had the top article of the month about Tesla releasing humanoid robots, which has 56.6k interactions so far and is responsible for the peak of public interactions on August 20th. The following two top articles referencing Musk talked more on Tesla’s proposed robots and streaming his upcoming SpaceX space mission on Netflix.They generated 36.2 and 35.5k interactions respectively.
The top story about Jeff Bezos mentioned his decrease in net worth following a weaker Q2 from Amazon, which currently has 36.5k engagements. Though Bezos has stepped down as CEO, his name is still inexorably tied to the company. The following stories about Bezos all referenced his space exploration company Blue Origin, as he fights with Musk’s SpaceX for a moon landing contract with NASA (while suing NASA in the process). The stories regarding this race to space totaled 113.8k engagements.
Though Bezos and Musk can sometimes steal the spotlight, we wanted to analyze other CEOs who have made headlines recently. We looked at news about Google’s Sundar Pichai and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, as both have recently been topics of discussion in the media.
Top articles about Sundar Pichai
Pichai has seen himself in the media frequently lately, mostly due to his order of mandating Google employees to get the Covid-19 vaccine if they wish to return to the office. He also has pushed back in-office return dates as the Delta variant continues to spread.
The New York Times had the top article on this news with 19.4k interactions. Pichai was quoted as saying, “Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead,” He then continued on explaining the work from home extension stating, “We recognize that many Googlers are seeing spikes in their communities caused by the Delta variant and are concerned about returning to the office, so this extension will allow us time to ramp back into work while providing flexibility for those who need it.”
As most stories focused on Pichai’s requirement of vaccines, Bloomberg made the top 10 with their article about Pichai joining other CEOs in calling to congress to offer a path to citizenship to young children brought to the U.S illegally. In a letter signed by Pichai and other big tech CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon’s Andy Jassy, they pleaded for Congress to help out Dreamers after a recent ruling in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas regarding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Top articles about Jack Dorsey
Dorsey has found himself in hot water with conservatives recently, as many conservative politicians and publications have criticized him directly for not banning Taliban linked Twitter accounts.
Breitbart holds the top spot with their article about the controversy, generating 11.7k engagements. Many politicians, such as Dan Crenshaw, are calling out Dorsey for hypocritical free speech rules.
Dorsey also made news when his digital payment company Square bought out Afterpay for $29 billion. Both Bloomberg and CNBC reported on the buyout, with engagements on both stories totaling 6.9k.
Most engaged with CEOs per top 100 stories
When it came to the top 100 stories, Elon Musk was by far the most frequently written about CEO. Musk held 32 of the top 100 stories, while Bezos followed behind with 15. Dorsey, Cook, and Pichai rounded out the top 100, while the rest were about other miscellaneous tech CEOs.
There wasn’t much variety in the stories, as almost all of the engagement about Musk revolved around Tesla’s robot plans, all of Bezos revolved around Blue Origin suing NASA, and all of Dorsey’s revolving around the Taliban and freedom of speech.
The technology industry has had such a profound impact on our society, especially in the past 10 years. Their influence will continue to increase, and their ever growing media presence will only amplify that to the public.
If you’d like to read more about CEOs in the news, head over to our blog about Bezos and Branson’s race to space and the PR lessons that emerged from it here.
