2024-04-28 22:46:37
The owner of “Tesla”, “SpaceX” and the social platform “X” Elon Musk, who is one of the richest people in the world, made a surprise visit to China, officials from Beijing told China Central Television, France Press reported.
“Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing this afternoon at the invitation of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade,” China Central Television reported.
The visit was not announced in advance.
Earlier today, a flight-tracking app showed that a private jet connecting with Musk had landed in Beijing this morning, and two sources familiar with the matter said the billionaire was making a surprise visit to the country, the country’s second-largest market for his cars, Reuters reported.
According to the sources, Musk will meet with senior Chinese government officials to discuss the deployment of fully self-driving (PSD) software and seek approval to transfer data collected in the country to train algorithms for autonomous driving technologies.
As of 2021, Tesla has stored all data collected from its cars in Shanghai, as required by Chinese regulators, and has not transferred any of it to the US.
The US electric car maker introduced PSS, the most human-independent version of its autopilot software, four years ago, but has yet to make it available in China, despite customer demand.
Earlier this month, in response to a query on social media platform X, Musk said he would make PSS available to customers in China “very soon.”
Local Chinese automakers such as Xpeng are trying to gain an edge over Tesla by deploying similar software.
Musk’s visit to China has not been made public, and the sources spoke on condition of anonymity. There is no comment from Tesla either.
The trip comes just over a week after the businessman pulled out of a planned visit to India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing “very heavy duties at Tesla”.
The company said this month it would cut 10 percent of its global workforce as it grapples with declining sales and an intensifying electric car price war led by Chinese brands.