Can you elaborate? I'm not seeing VW present itself as a paragon of virtue, just not advertising on a platform which no longer has teams capable of managing advertising (e.g. ensuring that you're not showing your advertising next to pornography or white nationalism).

No one is playing the virtue card here, it's just practical business.

In the past, VW celebrated the diesel engines in their cars because of the higher mileage. The emissions, though, weren't so great and they were caught deceiving the regulators who try to stop air pollution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

I think these events are pretty separate and independent.

Looks like the regulators failed. Where are the clean diesels now? Gone because the NOx limits created by the aforementioned regulators set the bar too high.

Instead we’re now only making ICEs that are gasoline-powered for passenger vehicles. Burning 1.5-2x the carbon for the same distance as clean diesel. IMO VW and the others who have since quietly withdrawn their clean diesels from the market hoped regulators would pull their heads out of their asses and get real on NOx limits. Cars like the TDI line were about 1/16th the NOx emission of a standard diesel-powered box truck.

I agree with you, but lying is not the solution.

There is a very entertaining group of people that ostensibly view any business decision made around any business that is associated with Elon Musk to be wholly due to liking or disliking him personally. They also tend to be voluminous posters.

Which is also funny because I'm the past Volkswagen made a point to associate with Musk more closely.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas...

None of the advertisers reducing or eliminating their Twitter spend are paragons of virtue (or have presented themselves as such). You'll see more and more companies allocating their advertising budget elsewhere until Musk can prove to agencies that he's capable of ensuring rudimentary brand safety.

I don't think this is virtue signaling - it's just walking away from a business partner that is in a period of extreme chaos.

It's both and a bit of free brand advertising. I fear I won't be able to tell my kids how Volkswagen is changing the world without these brand ads

I’ll take some virtue over none.