A veritable parade of overseas CEOs, including Tesla’s (TSLA.O) Elon Musk and Goldman Sachs’ (GS.N) David Solomon, have made their way to a reopened China in the last few months, as Beijing lifted most pandemic-era travel restrictions and as the world’s second-biggest economy and production powerhouse is an essential market for their companies. But one notable common strand among these executives’ visits is that they’ve yet to talk much in public about their trips, mainly consisting of meetings with government officials, local staff, and business partners. Media events and other public engagements, which were frequent before the pandemic, are now rare.
That’s particularly true for Tesla’s Musk, who landed in Beijing on Tuesday and wrapped up his two-day visit on Thursday, flying back to Texas. While the details of his meetings were private, the foreign ministry said he discussed Tesla’s desire to expand its presence in China, the electric carmaker’s second-biggest market and where it has its largest factory. The ministry cited him as saying that the interests of the United States and China are like “conjoined twins” and that he opposes moves that would result in decoupling.
While Musk usually makes numerous posts on Twitter, which he owns, he did not tweet while in China and appeared to have taken into account that the site is blocked in China, although it can be accessed via virtual private networks. During his trip, Musk met with at least three high-level Chinese officials and dined with the CEO of a critical battery supplier, according to public readouts posted on Chinese government websites. He also visited Gigafactory Shanghai, Tesla’s largest production hub. In a video posted to Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, the CEO thanked employees for working late on Wednesday night, making Gigafactory Shanghai successful, and for their dedication to their work.
Despite the delicate balancing act Musk is trying to perform, he is generally well-received by the Chinese government and public, which has lauded him for his philanthropic activities and as a role model encouraging young people to pursue science and technology careers. He is also widely popular on Chinese social media, where he has millions of followers and is viewed affectionately even as his stewardship of Twitter and promotion of conspiracy theories have drawn growing scrutiny in the United States. MIT Technology Review’s China Report is produced with the Aspen Institute’s Asia Program and China Environment Forum.
