According to a report published by the Observer citing the Hong Kong media "South China Morning Post" on the 28th, Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing on his own private jet on the same day. Although Tesla Inc. did not disclose the reason for Marcos's visit to Beijing, Reuters quoted a person familiar with the matter as saying that Musk is seeking to discuss the launch of Full Self-Driving software (FSD) in China, and hopes to obtain permission to transfer car data collected in China abroad for self-driving algorithm training.
However, compared with the purpose he hopes to achieve in Beijing this time, the timing of Musk's visit is more interesting. In fact, since the beginning of this year, Tesla's stock price has plummeted by nearly one-third compared with the beginning of the year, especially in the first quarter of this year, although it successfully defeated BYD and regained the title of the global electric vehicle "quarterly sales champion", but it also hit a new low since the third quarter of 2022, which did not meet the expectations of the capital market at all. Especially in the middle of this month, an internal email from Tesla let the outside world see the hidden worries of the business empire dominated by Musk, a tech maniac. Musk told all employees in an internal email that Tesla will lay off more than 10% of its global employees this year to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
He also bluntly said that the layoffs were to cope with the upcoming growth cycle, which is what foreign media called the "electric vehicle price war". However, the timing of Musk's visit to China coincided with the Biden administration's attempt to use evil methods to force Chinese companies to take the initiative to divest the ownership of the short video platform TikTok, so many international public opinion also thought that Musk may have come to China with the idea of "robbing while the fire is hot" this time.
In fact, Musk's visit to China is a "advance to retreat" strategy, and the two purposes of his trip, whether it is to promote fully autonomous driving technology or to take the data collected in China out of the country, cannot bypass Chinese law. But the latter has been raised to the level of national security by the mainland, once taken out of the country will have an unpredictable negative impact on China's national security, Musk knows this, so his real purpose is likely to promote Tesla's full self-driving technology in China as soon as possible, once Tesla has new good news, it will eventually be reflected in the stock price, so that Musk has an explanation in front of investors. At the same time, we should also note that Tesla is not the only foreign company that has proposed to the mainland to transfer the data collected in China to the mainland.
The reason why the mainland has remained unmoved so far is that the United States and the West are becoming more and more rampant in their information-gathering and intelligence-espionage operations on the mainland, from dispatching commercial espionage and training intelligence personnel in the past to collecting sensitive information through semi-public channels under the guise of consulting firms.
Emotionally, China's electric vehicles and Tesla can be called mutually successful, but on a practical level, even those as strong as Musk must respect China's core interests. Therefore, Musk's trip to Beijing is destined to be unsuccessful, if Tesla uses the collected Chinese data to serve Chinese consumers, China will of course welcome it with open hands, and even be happy to see Tesla regain its past glory, because "Made in China" will always need a hard enough "whetstone" to sharpen itself. But if Musk wants to transfer data abroad for other purposes, China's laws will always play a role in safeguarding the safety and well-being of the Chinese people.
Moreover, in the context of the extremely unfair treatment of Chinese companies in the United States, Musk, as a world-renowned technology tycoon, should also know that his every move will inevitably touch the sensitive nerves of Chinese consumers.