China gave American tech billionaire Elon Musk an unusually large welcome on his first visit in three years. Finally, Musk paid a late-night visit to the Tesla plant in Shanghai before the Tesla and Twitter boss’s private jet flew back to the United States on Thursday.
The 51-year-old billionaire was received in China not only by Foreign Minister Qin Gang, but also by Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and Industry Minister Jin Zhuanglong.
“A very worthwhile day,” Tesla spokeswoman Grace Tao wrote about photos of Musk with employees visiting the Tesla factory, which contributes to more than half of the US company’s global electric car production. Musk praised the plant, which was built in 2019, as “one of the most productive factories in the world”, as quoted by the Chinese online service Sina.
One of the most productive factories in the world.
Elon Musk about the Tesla plant in Shanhai
Musk, who otherwise tweets frequently, did not comment on his short message service during his two-day visit, which is blocked by state censorship in China anyway.
Whether the Twitter ban was a topic of his talks remained open. In any case, it was about the tense relations between China and the United States and the production of electric cars, according to Chinese reports.
Accordingly, Musk expressed admiration for China’s development, praised the Chinese as “hardworking and wise” and warned against a decoupling of the two largest economies. Musk was quoted as saying he wants to expand his business in China. The largest car market in the world, which relies heavily on electric cars, recently contributed to a fifth of Tesla’s global sales.
Chinese netizens hailed the controversial billionaire, who also runs the space company SpaceX but has little luck with Twitter, as a “hard-working entrepreneur”, “charismatic personality” and also as “big brother Ma” because of his Chinese name “Ma Sike”. “Ma” is the sign of horse. (dpa)
Source: Tagesspiegel
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