Elon Musk this month doubled down on his layman explanation of geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan by comparing the self-ruled island to Hawaii, an analogy that was strongly rejected by the Taiwanese government just weeks ago.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and the owner of X (formerly Twitter), told the Lex Fridman Podcast that Beijing sees the island as part of its territory. He drew criticism online for repeating alleged pro-China rhetoric.
“So they view it as that there’s a fundamental part of China, the island of Formosa, not Taiwan, that is not part of China, but should be. The reason it hasn’t been is because of the U.S. Pacific fleet,” Musk said.
China claims Taiwan as its own, but the Communist Party leadership has never ruled the democratically governed island in its seven decades in power in Beijing.
Musk—the wealthiest person in the world, according to Bloomberg—appeared to be referring to American intervention in the Taiwan Strait during the Cold War and most recently in the mid-1990s, when U.S. naval presence prevented Beijing from seizing Taiwan by force.
For the second time in two months, Musk drew parallels between Taiwan and the U.S. state of Hawaii to highlight its significance to China.
“Now, China does feel very strongly about Taiwan,” he said. “From their standpoint, it would be like one of the states—not their like Hawaii or something like that, but more significant than Hawaii. And Hawaii is pretty significant for us.”
Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University, said the tech mogul’s remarks carried a colonial undertone.
“Throughout human history, wars of conquest are often framed as civilizing missions,” Sung told Newsweek.
Musk spoke at length about China’s apparent focus on domestic matters, suggesting the nation had not typically sought to expand through conquest, according to the episode that aired on November 10. It was an argument made last week by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a dinner reception with hundreds of U.S. corporate leaders.
“China has historically always been, with rare exception, internally focused. They have not been acquisitive…meaning they are not gonna go out and invade a whole bunch of countries,” Musk said on the podcast.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images Sports
Peter Dahlin, the director of Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders, dismissed Musk’s description of Chinese foreign policy. In a post on X, Dahlin said China owned its existence to “settler colonialism,” in which it spent “[thousands] of years invading all neighbors.”
China today also has border conflicts “with almost every single neighbor,” the China researcher said.
“No, just swaths of Eurasia and the entire South China Sea, plus Asia’s highest ranked democracy of Taiwan. But what the hell does all this matter if you can sell a bunch of cars??” Jojje Olsson, a Swedish journalist based in Taiwan, said on X of Beijing’s territorial ambitions.
Fridman is an AI researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His show—known for deep dives into science, technology, history and philosophy—offered a broad platform for Musk, who was his latest high-profile guests.
Musk, on another podcast, made similar comments in September, when he first compared Taiwan to Hawaii, describing it as “an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China.”
Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, panned Musk on X and declared: “Taiwan is not for sale.”
Musk’s office didn’t respond to a written request for comment before publication.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.