Elon Musk said Saturday if Tesla vehicles were utilized to spy in China, the organization would be closed down, Reuters revealed. Musk offered the comment while talking by means of video connect to the China Development Forum, tending to reports that China has banned its military and government personnel from utilizing Tesla vehicles over security concerns.
“There’s a very strong incentive for us to be very confidential with any information,” Musk told the forum. “If Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, we will get shut down.”
The Wall Street Journal revealed Friday that individuals who work for China’s military, government agencies and “state-owned enterprises in sensitive industries” were restricted from driving Teslas. China is worried that Tesla’s outside cameras, which continually record footage, could be utilized to accumulate pictures to be sent back to the US, as per the Journal.
China is an immense market for Tesla and for electric vehicles; as per Reuters the carmaker sold 147,445 vehicles in the country a year ago, which represented 30% of its global total.
As Bloomberg notes, Tesla and its chief have taken an alternate tone with Chinese specialists than with their US counterparts. For example, a month ago Tesla apologized that one of its staff had accused China’s electrical grid for harming a customer’s vehicle: “We are deeply sorry for the misunderstanding and would like to apologize to the Nanchang Power Grid for the inconvenience caused,” Tesla said in a video.
Musk and Tesla have been more aggressive in their reactions to US authorities; the CEO once hung up on a call with the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, and a year ago he butted heads with experts in Alameda County, California, where Tesla’s Fremont plant is situated, over Covid limitations.