On Tuesday, Chinese state media Tweeted a photo of Elon Musk meeting with Vice Premier Wang Yang, one of China’s top officials. Oh, the irony – the Chinese government blocks Twitter inside China.
Though US tech CEO’s have made a habit of high-profile visits to China, this meeting was conspicuously discrete, and Tesla declined a request from Quora for additional details. Outside of the Xinhua news twitter post, the Chinese media was also largely mum on the Musk’s trip.
But the photo tells us enough. Musk is determined to step up his game in China, though he clearly doesn’t think a meeting with the Chinese government plays well with his domestic customers.
Perhaps Elon Musk’s so-called "private" space program doesn’t have adequate heavy-lift rockets. I guess he didn’t bring up his "plan" of starting commerical tourist trips to the moon by 2018, or the Chinese officials would have laughed their lungs out.