Ever since China lifted most of its pandemic-era journey restrictions in January, overseas executives have been swarming in. And Musk had good motive to go: China is an important a part of Tesla’s electric-vehicle empire, each as a market and as a manufacturing powerhouse. However because the proprietor of Starlink, SpaceX, and just lately Twitter, Musk has a way more sophisticated relationship with the nation.

There’s little info in English about Musk’s China journey. That’s primarily as a result of Musk, normally energetic on the social media platform he simply acquired, stayed very quiet throughout the entire journey. Whereas Twitter is banned in China, folks have all kinds of VPN instruments to entry it. Nonetheless, Musk didn’t appear to wish to give the impression that he was on Twitter whereas there. He solely tweeted a single time concerning the journey, after he left China. In reality, he even stopped commenting on different tweets—one thing he usually does dozens of instances day by day. 

However from the general public readouts posted by Chinese language authorities web sites and sightings of Musk shared on Chinese language social media, we will reconstruct his journey from Tuesday to Thursday.

He had fairly a busy itinerary: in 44 hours, Musk met with no less than three high-level Chinese language officers, dined with the CEO of the world’s largest EV battery provider, and visited Tesla’s manufacturing unit in Shanghai, amongst different issues. 

Musk’s personal jet landed in Beijing on the afternoon of Might 30, native time. He met with Qin Gang, China’s new overseas minister and former ambassador to the US, the identical day. In accordance with the ministry’s press launch, Musk mentioned within the assembly that he strongly opposes decoupling provide chains between the US and China, as a result of the 2 nations are “interlinked, like conjoined twins inseparable from one another.” That night, he had dinner with Zeng Yuqun, the CEO of CATL, which is a key provider of batteries to Tesla automobiles. 

CHINESE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The subsequent day, he met with two extra Chinese language ministers, these answerable for commerce and expertise. Reuters reported that he additionally visited Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang—China’s sixth-highest-ranking social gathering official—that afternoon, however the assembly has not been made public by the federal government or Musk. Within the night, he flew to Shanghai and headed to the Tesla Gigafactory, the place he took pictures with workers that he would later publish on Twitter.

ELON MUSK VIA TWITTER

On the morning of June 1, his final day in China, Musk squeezed in a single final assembly with Chen Jining, the Shanghai social gathering secretary, earlier than his jet left for Texas at 11:23 a.m.

Musk will not be the primary American govt to go to China this 12 months: earlier than him, there have been Apple’s Tim Cook dinner, Normal Motors’s Mary Barra, JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, Starbucks’s Laxman Narasimhan, and extra. However up to now, Musk has acquired the most important welcome, each from Chinese language authorities officers and from the folks on Chinese language social media.