In Shanghai, where ‘visionary’ tycoon Elon Musk is revered but Teslas are ‘old fashioned’
Tesla sales in China plummeted 49 per cent in February. But even as the billionaire’s electric cars lose ground, he remains popular.
As the world divides into two hostile camps, one in favour of Elon Musk and one opposed, Shanghai’s young men know where they stand.
“He is a sort of visionary, I think,” said Mark Tang, 25, who was taking a stroll with his pink-clad lapdog and girlfriend outside a fast-food complex this week. “His ideas are all about the future.”
Admittedly, the complex was in the heart of Musk territory. Behind Tang, lines of delivery moped drivers queued up to take lunch to the factories that stretch out for mile after mile nearby, in a giant industrial park south of the city.
Many of these strings of sleek, low-slung grey units are Musk’s production facilities, where half the world’s Teslas, approaching a million a year, are churned out. Many are exported, but the rest are sold inside China, where Tesla earns a quarter of its global income – about $US22 billion ($35bn) a year.
Other units are owned by Tesla supplier companies, logistics firms or spin-offs, who together employ thousands.
These young men may not be petrol-heads, but they can give you chapter and verse on battery life, onboard console specs and interior design.
Electric cars are the future and Musk is their pioneering leader. “Tesla was the flagship brand,” said Nathan Huang, 23, a recent college graduate. He drove a different, local model. “My parents bought it for me, so I couldn’t really argue when they said a domestic brand was more sensible,” he said.
But in any case, he thought Musk had moved on, conceptually. “It’s all about SpaceX now,” he added. “That’s a great company.” Teslas are almost history, he and several others agreed.
The love for Musk in China is not just from young men. Musk has described his friendship with the country as a mutual fan club and he is warmly welcomed by Chinese leaders, even as Beijing’s relationship with the White House has turned icy. In fact, he faces a number of forks in the road as a result of his role in President Trump’s administration, and some because of the changing face of China itself.
On Thursday night it was revealed by The New York Times that Musk had been invited to receive a briefing at the Pentagon on military planning of the sort normally reserved for officials with top-level security clearance.
The reports claimed he was to be shown secret plans for the eventuality of war with China, where Musk has broad interests beyond Tesla.
His SpaceX agency imports billions of dollars worth of components from China, which he regularly visits for meetings with top leaders, including, last year, the prime minister, Li Qiang. Musk also met President Xi in November 2023.
The White House confirmed the Pentagon meeting but hotly denied it would touch on China.
Nevertheless, even Musk’s own employees are pointing to contradictions between Trump’s avowed policies – containing China and tariffs on imports – and his personal and business interests.
Not long after Trump took office in January, Tesla’s chief financial officer, Vaibhav Taneja, warned investors that the US president’s proposed tariffs would inevitably hit the company’s bottom line. Taneja has sold dollars 4.5 million in Tesla shares since he gave that warning, as their price plunged on the stock markets.
The row about the Pentagon briefing reflects a broader divide within the administration, between those with global financial interests like Musk who, for example, support immigration to serve Silicon Valley; “China hawks” who want Trump to focus on countering China and its ambition to “reunify” Taiwan; and “America first” isolationists who want neither.
Musk has advocated for better relations with China and mirrored Communist Party talking points about Taiwan, comparing its status to that of Hawaii in the US.
Musk faces problems over Tesla as he becomes distracted by his work for Trump, arguments on X, the social media platform he bought, and SpaceX. Sales of Teslas are falling in America and Europe and the cars appear to be the target of a direct arson sabotage campaign, as those who dislike Musk’s politics take revenge.
In China, sales are also falling, down 49 per cent in February compared with the same month last year – but for a different reason. Experts, including Musk’s Shanghai fan club, say the reason is just due to competition. Chinese manufacturers have caught up.
“In terms of its AI components, Tesla has been surpassed by Chinese domestic brands,” Huang said. Chen Dian, 28, agreed that Tesla had been overtaken in terms of comfort, performance and price. “Tesla can now no longer really compare,” he said. Chen used to work for a Tesla supplier nearby. “Its battery is pretty good,” he said. “But its overall cost-effectiveness has fallen behind.”
Indeed, only this week, BYD, the Shenzhen-based firm whose sales passed Tesla’s to make it the world’s most popular electric car maker at the end of last year, unveiled a new five-minute charging system, which it said could beat Tesla’s or any others.
Other tech developments in recent weeks have unnerved America, such as the impact of DeepSeek, the high-end, low-cost artificial intelligence model whose launch led to a slump in the share price of American rivals in January. The idea of cars from China surpassing America, where the car is king, might be too much to bear.
For Chinese people, though, such issues are seen through a practical lens. Given the restrictions on their ability to put pressure on their own government, they are unlikely to scrutinise American politics too closely.
Those prepared to comment on Tesla’s performance – overwhelmingly men – were certainly not convinced by the view of some that Musk’s behaviour in the White House was so extreme that he must have gone “either Nazi or crazy”.
Luo Shuangquan, 34, who works for a firm supplying machine parts to Tesla said: “He can’t be that mad if he’s the richest man in the world. He has charisma, he has success, and he wants to turn Starlink into a global telephone service. Isn’t that great?”
Behind him, electric cars hummed past soundlessly. Musk is anything but soundless, but he speaks with a softer voice when he visits Beijing than he does in the White House.
Chinese leaders have other reasons to like him. The shutting down of alternative media voices such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America as part of cuts on federal spending has delighted Beijing – both highlighted China’s human rights policies.
“You have so many fans here in China,” Ren Hongbin, head of the country’s trade promotion body, told Musk as he welcomed him to Beijing last year.
“The feelings are reciprocated,” Musk replied. “I’m a huge fan of China.”
The Times
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