[“U.S. shadow president”] Elon Musk has huge and extensive connections to the Chinese dictatorship, both personally and through his businesses, and he has a long history of bending over backwards to appease its desires.
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Musk’s ties to China largely revolve around Tesla. The company’s largest factory is in Shanghai, where it produces half—over 900,000—of its vehicles sold worldwide. One source estimated that nearly 40 percent of Tesla’s battery supply chain relied on Chinese companies, and those relationships are growing. In 2022, Tesla opened a showroom in Xinjiang, where China is conducting a cultural genocide against its Uyghur minority.
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Tesla has also received large government subsidies, both tacit and explicit, from the Chinese state. It was the first and so far only foreign car company allowed to operate by itself in the Chinese market, as opposed to others like Volkswagen that had to form a joint venture with a Chinese company. Tesla has also secured more than half a billion dollars in loans from state-owned banks there, as well as a 10 percentage point break on its corporate tax rate that lasted until 2023.
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It’s not a coincidence that China is also Tesla’s largest market, and indeed has become more important to the company of late. While sales fell in Europe and the U.S. last year, and appear to be falling faster since Trump was elected (which is surely driven in large part by Musk’s Nazi antics), Tesla sold 657,000 cars in China in 2024—an increase of about 9 percent.
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Musk was also seemingly responsible for removing a number of controls on investment in China in the most recent [U.S.] government funding bill. Back in December, he personally blew it up out of nowhere with dozens of frantic posts on Twitter/X, and when a new version came through, wouldn’t you know it, the controls were gone.
It similarly comes as no surprise that Musk has repeatedly praised China, and even offered support for its foreign-policy objectives. He has personally met with top Chinese officials and businessmen on many occasions over the years, including Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who personally gave Musk a Chinese green card at Tesla’s Shanghai factory, and President Xi Jinping. In 2022, Musk said Taiwan should be deemed a Hong Kong–style “special administrative zone” of China, for which he was thanked by the Chinese ambassador. In 2023, he said on CNBC there is a “certain inevitability” about China’s goal of annexing Taiwan, and later that year said on a podcast that the island is an “integral part” of China. In 2024, Vladimir Putin reportedly asked Musk to not activate Starlink internet over Taiwan as a favor to China, and later SpaceX told its Taiwanese suppliers to leave the island.
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It should also be mentioned that Chinese law states that any company operating in China must hand over any data the government wants without question.
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America is getting a painful, bludgeoning lesson in why there are so many federal rules around ethics, foreign associations, and security. The government is supposed to be accountable to the people, not the personal plaything of one ultra-billionaire and whatever dictators might be able to twist his arm.
Xi was duely elected and has far less power to unilaterally direct PRC than Trump has clearly demonstrated the president to have over the USA. We both know you’ve never investigated for a moment how the PRC actually works. You credulously accept the assertion that the PRC is a dictatorship because it flatters you and your western chauvinism. Much like how Trump supporters credulously believe everything he says because it flatters them and their white chauvinism.
Xi was duely elected
It seems you don’t know how a Chinese ‘election’ works …
racist chauvinist nonsense. death to america
Do yourself a favor and stay away from the communities where you get this stuff to get your life back.
lol suck it out of my ass yankee
Another kkkracker down
You guys did it, you solved racism by yelling at a jingoist.
Judge keeps Musk’s DOGE from further digging into US Gov’s spending
Citing potential “irreparable harm,” US Federal Judge Paul A. Engelmayer Saturday blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing specific records within the Treasury Department, thus acquiescing to a request from New York Attorney General Letitia James and 19 States under Democratic rule.
The plaintiffs contended Musk’s team accessing this data could pose risks to cybersecurity and violate federal law by potentially mishandling or exposing sensitive personal and financial information of millions of Americans.
Engelmayer also ruled that any data already accessed by DOGE must be destroyed immediately. This injunction is in place until at least February 14, 2025, when further arguments involving national security, privacy rights, and political motivations, will be heard.
