Was it a PR stunt? Was he chasing clout ? But whatever the reason may be, Tshepo Mohlala's tweet didn't go down well.
Founder of Tshepo Jeans Mohlala caused a stir on Twitter on Monday night after he tweeted about his masks being better than the others.
In a rather bold move, Mohlala posted a picture of him in his denim mask and a picture of another man wearing a different denim mask and captioned it: “nothing but the truth so help me”.
A Twitter user, @MaSibanda, quickly called him out by saying: “Tshepo, you can market your stuff without rubbishing the efforts of others. You won’t lose business for it”, but the jean maker clapped back and claimed that the other guy was copying his stuff.
He replied: “But they’re knocking me off though???” Which made things worse because many of his followers took it as if he was claiming to own rights to the denim masks, whereas it’s no secret that everyone in the world is making masks, even 10-year-olds are doing it.
What followed was a lot of criticism of the young entrepreneur.
"Support black businesses" the "so they can thrive and look down on others" is silent.
— iVenda Lase Mlazi (@Oscar_T_Hamese) May 11, 2020
This is so low of Tshepo. pic.twitter.com/RHzmNzcPZg
I'm really not surprised you'd post this rubbish, you still bitch about a girl who left you when you were 16... https://t.co/8QAU5KzKLX
— Buhle (@boohley) May 11, 2020
There was even a thread where Mohlala was apologising to his clients for poor service delivery.
Mohlala also justified his tweet, which was later deleted after many people asked him to.
He claimed that someone bought his mask and did a replica without his permission and was taking the matter further.
undefinedThis was a response to a major fabric supplier where we buy some of our fabrics, who bought one of our masks and replicated it without our permission.
Our lawyers are dealing with this. I’m sorry to those I’ve offended because Of the lack of context of my tweet.
— T S H E P O (@TshepoJeans) May 11, 2020