Tesla CEO Elon Musk lauded the "smart" and "hard-working people" of China while lamenting the "entitled" and "complacent" character of people in the United States in a podcast published on Friday.
Musk was responding to a question asked by Automotive News publisher Jason Stein, who conducted the interview.
Stein asked Musk, “How about China as an EV strategy leader in the world?”
Musk replied:
China rocks in my opinion. The energy in China is great. People there – there’s like a lot of smart, hard-working people.
And they’re really -- they’re not entitled, they’re not complacent, whereas I see in the United States increasingly much more complacency and entitlement especially in places like the Bay Area, and L.A. and New York.
At the end of last year, Tesla reached agreements with a number of Chinese banks on a secured term loan facility of up to 9 billion yuan ($1.29 billion).
In February this year, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory was temporarily closed due to the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic.
Tesla reaches $1.29 billion loan agreement with Chinese bank for Shanghai plant
On February 8, Xu Wei, spokesman for the Shanghai municipal government said that the Tesla Shanghai factory located in the Lingang New Area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone will resume production on February 10.
The Lingang New Area Management Committee also stated that, in light of the characteristics of Tesla and other key production enterprises and the actual difficulties encountered in the resumption of work, they will fully coordinate to help the enterprises put into production as soon as possible and be able to produce normally.
In April, Li Qiang, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, held a video conversation with Musk.
Li Qiang gave his congratulation to Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory on its good results in the first quarter of production and sales in the face of the outbreak.
He said he hopes Tesla will continue to plow deep into Shanghai, improve the business layout, and accelerate the construction of the second phase of the Shanghai Gigafactory.
He also mentioned that Shanghai will make every effort to create an international first-class business environment, provide more accurate and high-quality services, help enterprises solve the current development difficulties, and support enterprises to achieve greater development in Shanghai.
Despite all these, Musk pointed out that Telsa has not received differential treatment as domestic companies. “They have been supportive. But it would be weird if they were more supportive of a non-Chinese company. They’re not,” he said.
