Tesla CEO Elon Musk contributed an opinion column to the official issue of China Cyberspace Management, the influential agency that oversees data security at major technology companies and works with other government entities to censor online content.
The billionaire laid out a familiar vision of how technology will secure humanity’s future in the July issue of the official CAC magazine, joining prominent figures in the local industry including the president of Antgroup.
These views reflect the broader goals of President Xi Jinping’s administration, which has worked for more than a year to reduce the power of tech leaders including Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group, a campaign that wiped out more than $1 trillion from the companies’ market value, when regulators halted the offering. Antgroup’s record initial year is in 2020 and culminated at the time of the delisting of Didi Global, an effort led by the CAC cyberspace agency.
Musk’s ideas are similar to the outreach that Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai did in years past, when US Internet companies had aspirations to do business with the world’s second-largest economy.
Kendra Schaefer, head of technology policy research at Trivium China, said: “Musque is trying to walk the same tightrope that Zuckerberg and Pichai walked in front of him – but these are different times. Tech executives trying to maintain healthy relationships in China are increasingly seeing this The decision is being taken out of their hands either by Chinese regulations, US users or the US government.” “If Musk doesn’t sit before a congressional committee within a year to question him regarding his relationship with China, I would be dumbfounded,” she said.
China is the world’s largest market for electric cars and home to the world’s most productive Tesla factory in Shanghai. Among its suppliers is Amperex Technology, the world’s largest electric car battery maker, headquartered in Fujian Province. While some Chinese consumers have claimed safety, quality and customer service issues for which Tesla has apologized and its domestic data set has come under scrutiny, Musk has described the market as key to the company’s growth plans.
After joining Xi’s World Internet Conference extolling the advantages of international cooperation in September and opening a new showroom in January in China’s Xinjiang region, Musk was criticized for his close ties with Beijing. A representative of Tesla China confirmed that Musk wrote the article but declined to comment further.
“I want to do everything we can to maximize the use of technology to help create a better future for humanity,” Musk wrote. “To that end, any field that contributes to a sustainable future is worth our investment.”
In the column, Musk said the magazine – whose inaugural edition came out this year – had reached out to him for the article. The entrepreneur mentioned his businesses including Neuralink Corp., which is working on a brain chip, and Tesla Bot, a Tesla robot slated to release its first prototype soon. He described his audience as his “Chinese friends” and described the SpaceX mission as creating a self-sufficient city on Mars.
“I hope more people will join us in our fight to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy,” Musk wrote. “I also welcome like-minded Chinese partners to join us in exploring clean energy, artificial intelligence, human-machine collaboration, and space exploration to create a future worth waiting for.”
