Elon Musk Says Taiwan part of China, Receives Stern Rebuke from Taiwan

Elon Musk again pushed himself into a controversy by asserting that Taiwan was an integral part of China. In return he received a stern rebuke from Taiwan’s foreign minister, who said, Taiwan is “not for sale”.

Musk, the owner of the social media platform X, the Tesla electric car company and Starlink satellite network, made the comment regarding Taiwan in the All-In Summit in Los Angeles. “Their (Beijing’s) policy has been to reunite Taiwan with China. From their standpoint, maybe it is analogous to Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because … the US Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification effort by force,” Musk said.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu responded in a post on X late Wednesday, saying he hoped Musk could ask China to “open @X to its people”. China blocks X, along with other major Western social media like Facebook.

“Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy,” Wu added. “Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the PRC & certainly not for sale!” Wu said, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.

Musk’s Tesla had a large factory in Shanghai, which may be the reason behind his attitude towards the communist country. In October 2022, Musk opined that tensions between China and Taiwan could be resolved by handing over some control of Taiwan to Beijing. It received strong reactions from Taiwan.