In a recent interview, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk praised China for being “more responsible” than the U.S.
The Express reports that in a recent interview with Business Insider, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was questioned about the “ethical limitations” of operating in China. Musk stated that so far he has had a positive experience with Chinese government officials and stated that they could “possibly” be more “more responsible” to their citizen’s happiness than America is.
Musk stated: “When I meet with Chinese government officials, they’re always very concerned about this. Are people going to be happy about a thing? Is this going to actually serve the benefit of the people? It seems ironic, but even though you have sort of a single-party system, they really actually seem to care a lot about the well-being of the people. In fact, they’re maybe even more sensitive to public opinion than what I see in the US.”
Business Insider’s interviewer and the CEO of the tech firm Axel Springer SE, Mathias Döpfner, questioned Musk on his statement noting China’s extremely poor human rights record. Döpfner stated: “China doesn’t care about human rights. How could there ever be an equal and level playing field. Do you really see an opportunity for Western democracies to win?”
Musk responded by discussing AI, praising American firms such as Google and Deepmind for their superiority over similar Chinese companies, stating: “China’s putting a lot of effort into AI. And they may be making progress. But I’ve not seen progress that is close to Google and DeepMind.”
Since opening a Tesla production plant in Shanghai, Musk has been extremely positive about China, stating in an interview in July last year that “China rocks in my opinion”, and adding: “The energy in China is great. People there – there’s like a lot of smart, hard-working people.” He further called people in the United States “entitled” and “complacent.” He suggested that the U.S. has “been winning for too long” with technology, and added: “When you’ve been winning too long you take things for granted.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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