Elon Musk has wrapped up a two-day high-stakes trip to China, but he has been uncharacteristically silent and has yet to make any public statements. Elon Musk got a warm welcome in China and right-wing criticism on home ground this week as he arrived for his first visit since 2020.
The Twitter CEO and Tesla boss met with three government officials. China’s foreign Commerce and Industry ministers, while also reportedly meeting and dining with the head of the country’s top battery supplier, Musk, used his first trip to China since the pandemic to initially meet with the Chinese foreign minister, Chin Gang.
He told the Chinese foreign minister, who by the way is also a former ambassador to the U.S., that the interests of the two countries are intertwined and Tesla opposes a so-called decoupling, according to an online statement the Chinese side has issued.
China accounts for 50 percent of Tesla’s vehicle sales and twenty percent of its production capacity to stoke demand amid China’s softening economy Tesla started a price war in October by lowering the prices of Model 3 and Model Y cars.
The vehicles now sell for up to one-third less than they do in the United States. The American EV maker sold over 70 000 cars in the first four months of 2023, accounting for 9.6 percent of China’s new energy vehicles.
Market trailing is a distant second to China’s byd’s 38.2 market share Analysts say there is no ruling out more discounts from Tesla in the second half of the year to grab more market share, but Musk’s death in China has raised concerns in the U.S., and lawmakers have questioned his business presence in the country, including whether China could potentially gain access to classified information held by SpaceX, where Musk is also CEO.
At a time of heightened rivalry between both countries, this meeting also highlights that the Communist Party in China is trying to revive investor interest in China’s slowing economy and reassure companies rattled by anti-monopoly and data security crackdowns and U.S.-China political and military tensions.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Rama Swamy expressed deep concerns about meeting with China’s foreign minister and top diplomats, saying it is risky for the US when the communist country uses prominent business leaders as puppets.
I really love and respect a lot of what Elon Musk has done with Twitter. He’s trying to take it in the right direction, turning it into a free speech platform. I’ve been a vocal advocate of that, but I’m going to break a cardinal rule and an unspoken rule in the Republican Party these days and then the conservative movement by saying that if somebody’s an actual hero and they’re doing a certain thing, you can’t criticise them when they do something.
