But it highlighted the Tesla chief’s potential conflicts of interest between protecting his business interests in China and serving as a confidant to the incoming president and a government efficiency tsar.
Tesla earned almost a quarter of its sales in the third quarter from China and exported even more vehicles from its Shanghai plant to third countries.
Some analysts believe Beijing is pinning its hopes on Musk as a potential intermediary with Trump, who has vowed to increase tariffs on imports from China. Chinese officials had previously discussed using Musk as a broker to resolve TikTok’s fate in the US.
Musk on Sunday also met Chinese vice-president Han Zheng, who will represent President Xi Jinping at Trump’s inauguration. The presence of a Chinese official as senior as Han is unprecedented at US presidential inaugurations, where Beijing is normally represented by its ambassador in Washington.
“Han met . . . Elon Musk, and welcomed US companies including Tesla to seize opportunities and share the fruits of China’s development,” China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
Han also met business leaders from the US-China Business Council and the US Chamber of Commerce on Sunday, as well as Trump’s incoming vice-president JD Vance.
Han and Vance discussed the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl, which successive US administrations have pushed Beijing to crack down on, as well as regional stability and balancing trade, the Trump-Vance transition team said in a statement.
US business leaders in the past have sought to play a moderating influence in often-volatile Sino-US relations, a role Beijing seems eager to encourage ahead of the second Trump administration.
Han described US business as a “backbone” of relations between the countries, and urged businesses to “play an active role as a bridge” in US-China relations, Xinhua said.
© 2025 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.
