By pressuring Tesla. One thing making me nervous with Tesla's China business is that it will become too big for Tesla to let it fail, at which point Tesla (and every other Musk company) will be beholden to the CCP.
Concerns like this are why I think he considered taking it private again. He can personally not give a fuck and decide to pull out of China anytime, but being a public company and “acting in shareholder’s interests” might get in the way of ethics...
Wait, are you implying Musk would move out of China, but the shareholders would want him to stay? You do realize he's done nothing but praise China right? Let alone that much of Tesla's funding would dry up if he "went private".
The reality distortion field around musk is insane...
Even if Musk didn't own Tesla, I don't think SpaceX wants to pick a fight with the Chinese government unnecessarily. It would be a distraction from their core mission – which is to drive down the cost of access to space. Starlink's role in that is to provide a guaranteed customer to increase scale, and to provide profits which can be directed into further space ventures. Picking a fight with the Chinese government doesn't serve that mission in any way. If Starlink gets a reputation for being a thorn in the side of the world's governments, that's going to damage its success in countries other than China, by reducing the likelihood those other countries' governments will approve it.
SpaceX may or may not decide to bring Starlink to China. But either they will bring it to China following the Chinese government's rules, or they will geofence it so it can't be accessed from Chinese territory.
Maybe it will be moot since CCP might likely fund, steal, push for - whatever it takes - their own internal 'ip' & supply. Maybe batteries are difficult though.
totally! this is one area i am 100% fine with theft all around - it should be called sharing & cooperating together in a world wide fight to reverse climate catastrophe!!
I understand people panicking about this, but lets cool your horses a bit.
First of all, SpaceX will not sell Firewall circumvention in China. They are an ISP and need to follow the rules if they want to officially sell there.
Second, even if somehow people got terminals and try to use them, SpaceX could block them. And even if they didn't, the government could locate these people, relativity easily.
Third, even if you assume the CCP is so 'diabolical' to attack Tesla, because of SpaceX. The are not a universal power, China has big plans to have their own car companies be exporters of EV and export batteries and be a major player in the battery supply chain. If they went after Tesla will some BS rules, I would suspect it would cause an international issue on the highest level and would lead to tit-for-tat style destruction on all sides potentially.
SpaceX will never be beholden to China, neither will Boring or Neurolink.
Tesla is literally the largest selling EV maker in China.
And if CCP simply starts attacking foreign auto-maker based on pretences based on pretences. Then the US have a significant interest in paying back China auto and battery makers in equal measure. And European car makers and companies also have to seriously ask them-selves when its gone happen to them.
The deals about how the car market is set up, is being made between countries and are part of international agreements.
> Tesla is literally the largest selling EV maker in China.
That's true for the Model 3 for the first half of 2020 only, they were a long way behind in 2019 and were outsold by the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV in the second half of 2020. Most of their competitors sell multiple models as well meaning that in some of those months they sold more EVs than Tesla overall.
The Model 3 smashed it for a few months last year, but they're not the largest selling EV maker in China.