Tesla's Musk Visits China After 3yrs

Tesla

. Elon Musk left a hotel in Beijing on Wednesday. He was in a Tesla car.

Elon Musk is visiting China for the first time in over 3 years. He's the boss of Tesla. China is the second largest economy in the world.

On Tuesday, he reached Beijing. He will go to Tesla's big manufacturing plant in Shanghai too.

The super rich person met with Qin Gang, China's foreign minister right after getting to China.

So far, Mr Musk hasn't given any official statement regarding the trip. This visit happened at a time when there are problems between the US and China.

When he left a hotel in Beijing on Wednesday, he refused to talk to reporters about his travel plans.

On Wednesday, Mr. Musk spoke with China's industry minister Jin Zhuanglong. They talked about making electric vehicles.

China's foreign ministry declared on Tuesday that Mr. Musk consented to the growth of Tesla's business in China. Tesla's largest market, after the US, is China.

In the meeting, Mr Musk talked about the US and China economies. He called them "conjoined twins". The ministry said this.

The BBC asked Tesla for a comment. Tesla did not reply right away.

Mr Musk has been unusually silent on Twitter. He owns the platform, and has over 141 million followers.

He usually tweets a lot but hasn't tweeted since Tuesday afternoon when he arrived in the country.

China doesn't allow the use of social media platform. However, people can access it using VPNs. VPNs are Virtual Private Networks.

Many important US executives are visiting China. Mr. Musk is one of them. Other executives include Jamie Dimon and Tim Cook. They come to work and meet with important people in China.

Tesla is facing a tough position due to increasing tensions between Washington and Beijing, according to Dan Ives from Wedbush Securities.

Mr. Ives said that Wall Street is really focused on making sure Tesla can expand in China without any problems. It's important for Tesla to play well with others in Beijing.

Elon Musk's jet was seen in Beijing on Tuesday.

Tesla began constructing the gigafactory in Shanghai in January 2019. This factory is Tesla's initial manufacturing site outside of the United States.

In the same year, American company made their first cars in China. This was a big achievement for them.

COVID lockdowns in Shanghai and other parts of the country made it hard for companies to work. The financial, manufacturing, and shipping sectors were affected. Manufacturers faced challenges due to the restrictions.

Mr. Musk said that the lockdown in Shanghai due to coronavirus was very hard for Tesla. They halted most of their production for several weeks.

The plant is now working again, confirmed by Mr Musk. They made a million cars in August. This was about one-third of Tesla's production worldwide.

Tesla's Model Y electric car is very popular in China. The country is now the biggest market for this vehicle. JATO, a market research firm, provided this information.

The first three months of this year saw over 94,000 Model Y cars sold in China. This is more than the US and Europe. You can see this in JATO data.

Tesla has had competition from car giants, such as Ford and General Motors. Newer companies like China's BYD and Nio have also entered the market. This has challenged Tesla's leading position in the electric vehicle market.

Last year, Mr Musk bought Twitter for $44bn. He needs to find a new leader for the company. He wants to focus on his other businesses, including Tesla and SpaceX.

He appointed Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of the platform. Yaccarino was formerly the advertising head at NBCUniversal. This happened earlier this month.

It's tough for Ms Yaccarino. She's in charge of a biz that hasn't made money so far. Also, people are watching closely how the biz deals with fake news and hateful talk.

Fidelity Investments funded Mr. Musk's takeover of Twitter. Now, they say the platform is worth only a third of the price he paid.

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