Beijing warns Elon Musk ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’ after Tesla chief – which sells 40% of its cars in China – shared a post blaming Covid for Wuhan lab leak
Chinese state media has warned Elon Musk that he risks damaging his relationship with China after Twitter’s CEO responded to reports about the origins of the coronavirus.
Last week, Musk responded to a tweet speculating whether “Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the development of COVID-19,” citing research in a laboratory in Wuhan.
Musk said, “He did it through a conduit (EcoHealth).”
The Global Times tabloid Posted on social media that Musk was at risk of “breaking the pot” of China, an idiom that means “to bite the hand that feeds you.”
Musk’s electric car company Tesla has a factory campus in Shanghai and the Chinese market accounts for approx 40% of sale.
Elon Musk regained his spot as the richest man in the world this week after a stock boost from Tesla
Musk responds to a post on Twitter asking if Fauci funded Covid development
The CCP’s tabloid, published under the party’s flagship magazine, The People’s Daily, snapped back at Musk for spreading a “conspiracy theory that defames China.”
The paper said that while American scientists and virologists “despise” their politicians, under the “instigation of right-wing conservatives,” the “issue” (of the alleged leak of Covid from a Wuhan lab) “continued to ferment in the field of American public opinion.” .’.
The extended message suggested that the US Department of Energy had “cooperated” with political forces “hostile to China”, with US media to “advertise a conspiracy theory about the origin of the coronavirus”.
It went on to suggest that Musk had become closer to right-wing forces in the US, showing that he had “a tendency to endorse these right-wing conservative values.”
The richest man in the world also made one apparently sarcastic remark in response to news, the US energy department had concluded that Covid most likely stemmed from a lab leak.
Musk has been critical of Fauci in the past.
The allegations against Fauci are nevertheless baseless.
Musk wrote in December last year: ‘My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci’.
Interest in the origins of the coronavirus was revived last week when the United States Department of Energy, which is responsible for a network of national research labs, said the most likely scenario was that Covid started in a Chinese lab.
The department concluded with “little confidence” that the pandemic started with a laboratory leak.
This followed similar findings from the FBI in 2021, reportedly issued with “moderate confidence.”
The Chinese government, as well as many foreign researchers, have strongly denied that the coronavirus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
But the theory that a virus starts with bats, moves to an intermediate species, and is passed on to humans has lost some support.
A translated portion of the Global Times report, a Chinese daily newspaper and state-affiliated media
Elon Musk responds to a post suggesting the US Department of Energy concluded that Covid most likely stemmed from a lab leak. The department concluded this with ‘little confidence’
November last year sources told Reuters Tesla had plans to export Chinese-made electric vehicles to the United States and Canada.
The US-based company was reportedly evaluating whether Model 3 and Model Y EVs could go on sale in North America this year.
Sales of Chinese-made Teslas increased 18% in January 2023, an increase of 10% year-on-year.
The Chinese market is Tesla’s second largest but sales have Reportedly began to dry up as competition between retailers intensified.
