Will China Soon Control Both Elon Musk and SpaceX?
by Gordon G. Chang • May 6, 2024 at 5:00 am
A year ago, Tesla held the No. 1 ranking in China's new-energy vehicle retail segment. In the first quarter of this year, the company had fallen to third place..... It is not clear that Tesla can compete in China, where the regime does just about everything it can to favor Chinese competitors.
Musk has made Tesla reliant on China, and China's rulers know that.
"What is there to stop them [Chinese officials] from going to Musk directly and saying, 'We'll call your line of credit early, unless you give us X, Y, or Z?'" — Congressional Republican aide, Washington Examiner, August 26, 2020.
"Musk should expect China to make demands for technology and data transfers to include Starlink and SpaceX heavy-lift rockets." — Blaine Holt, retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier general and technology entrepreneur, to Gatestone Institute, May 3, 2024.
"Will Congress now look the other way while the often-used CCP playbook of corporate blackmail plays out, compromising our security?" — Blaine Holt to Gatestone Institute, May 3, 2024.
"You have me, and I have you." — Chinese Premier Li Qiang to Elon Musk, CNN, April 28, 2024.
The words, ostensibly meant to show U.S.-China friendship, are in reality a warning. It is now clear that one person so beholden to China should not be so central to America's effort to stay in space.
At the end of April, Elon Musk at the last moment cancelled a trip to India, instead showed up in Beijing, and snagged a deal to rescue Tesla. The results were immediate: The shares of the electric-vehicle maker, which had been out-of-favor on Wall Street, soared on the news.
Now Washington has to be worried that China will control Musk's other company, SpaceX, which is critical to America's ambitions in space.
The billionaire during his two-day trip to China, the second in less than a year, announced he had struck a deal with China's Baidu on mapping and navigation software. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in an April 28 statement that Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y vehicles had passed China's data-security requirements.
