The Chinese market and China’s government pose huge dilemmas for Elon Musk and other U.S. entrepreneurs. From Peter Schweizer at gatestoneinstitute.com:
- “Other American CEOs have close relationships to the [Chinese Communist] Party. But [Elon] Musk is the only one who loudly praises Beijing while running a space company with incredibly sensitive and powerful defense applications.” — Isaac Stone Fish, Barron’s, November 13, 2020.
- Musk’s dilemma is not unique. The close technology-sharing relationship between Tesla and SpaceX poses national security risks to his adopted home country, but so do Google’s and Microsoft’s work with China on artificial intelligence. U.S. government policy is predictably slow in catching up to the speed of hard-charging, globe-spanning enterprises like Musk’s, and the Chinese are only too happy to increase that gap.
- At some point, however, companies such as SpaceX, Google and Microsoft, and the individual Americans who own, direct, or invest in them, will face a similar choice between their obligation to America and their pursuit of more profits abroad.
“Other American CEOs have close relationships to the [Chinese Communist] Party. But [Elon] Musk is the only one who loudly praises Beijing while running a space company with incredibly sensitive and powerful defense applications.” — Isaac Stone Fish, author of America Second: How America’s Elites Are Making China Stronger. Pictured: Musk meets with China’s Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing on January 9, 2019. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AFP via Getty Images) |
Elon Musk has fans all over the ideological spectrum. People on the Left love him for popularizing electric cars with his Tesla company, or maybe for openly smoking pot on podcaster Joe Rogan’s show. Conservatives love him for his entrepreneurial dash and penchant for standing up to politicians and Big Tech censorship of the internet. And everyone loves Musk for responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and severing of its communications links by making his Starlink satellite broadband internet service available in Ukraine and donating Starlink terminals to Ukrainians. The Starlink connectivity, according to one report, may even be helping armed Ukrainian drones target Russian military vehicles.
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