The Chinese regime propaganda outlet Global Times published an article on Monday amplifying pro-China “green” energy personality Elon Musk’s increasingly hostile criticisms of President Donald Trump.
The Times, citing regime-approved “experts,” criticized President Donald Trump’s efforts to pass the “big, beautiful bill” — a major legislation that, among other actions, would cut subsidies to “green” energy companies such as Musk’s Tesla — as potentially hurting America’s “clean energy sectors” and “climate response efforts.”
Lü Xiang, a research fellow often quoted in the pages of the state-run newspaper, described cooperation between Trump and Musk as “inconceivable” from the beginning, “considering they have opposite views and interests in regard to EVs and clean energy industry.”
“According to Lü, the bill will not only affect Musk’s EV giant, but signals a major veering of US energy policy: touting US fossil fuels while suppressing its own clean energy sectors,” the Times noted, paraphrasing Lü as stating that passing the bill would “not only have an impact on America’s own energy transition, but also, considering the US’ global influence, deal a blow to international carbon cut and climate response efforts.”
The Global Times has traditionally maintained a positive coverage line of Musk. More recently, it has published criticism of the “big, beautiful bill” aligned with Musk’s complaints. On June 29, for example, the outlet published a comment by “Chinese expert” Xhou Mi who predicted that the bill’s tax modifications “could exacerbate tax distortions within the country” and “significantly undermine global tax equity.”
The Global Times also favorably covered Musk’s opposition to President Trump’s tariff policies, which particularly targeted the detrimental trade imbalance between China and America. The newspaper praised Musk as “a key adviser and political donor” and declared that Musk’s complaints “lay bare the US’ internal divisions over the new tariffs and represent a mounting sense of insecurity and instability.”
“The US argument to impose tariffs to rebalance its trade in goods has lost sight of the big picture that the US’ comparative advantage lies in fields such as trade in services and the global dollar system,” another Chinese “expert,” think tank chief Wang Huiyao, was quoted as saying, supporting Musk’s stance.
Musk, the CEO of several technology companies, joined the White House at the beginning of President Trump’s second term as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with cutting government spending. President Trump hired Musk despite his lengthy history of cooperation with and flattery of the Chinese Communist Party, including extensive investments in the Chinese economy and public insults towards American workers.
The relationship between Musk and President Trump cratered following the conclusion of his work at DOGE, in particular over the “big, beautiful bill.” Musk has extensively condemned the bill as including too much government spending, to which President Trump has responded that the bill would cut government subsidies to Musk’s companies and suggesting this was the true origin of his disagreement. Musk concluded the public debate with Trump by suggesting that the president was involved in pedophilic activities, an insult he has lobbed spuriously in the past at emergency first responders.
Musk later published a statement claiming that his comments, without specifying which, “went too far,” but has continued to attack President Trump’s political agenda.
On Monday, Musk returned to complaining that the “big, beautiful bill” contains “insane spending” and declared, “time for a new political party.”
“Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate,” Trump wrote in a response on Monday. “It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one.”
“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” Trump continued in a post on his website Truth Social. “No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”
Prior to joining and departing the Trump White House in disgust, Musk regularly made public statements in support of China and its government.
“China rocks in my opinion. The energy in China is great. People there — there’s like a lot of smart, hard-working people,” Musk said in a 2020 interview. “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.”
Musk went on to object in that interview to the United States “winning too long” and to accuse America of taking “things for granted.” He did not caveat his praise for “hard-working” Chinese with the fact that slavery, particularly as a policy to exacerbate the ongoing genocide of Uyghur and other Turkic people in occupied East Turkistan, is prevalent under Chinese communism.
Far from condemning the Uyghur genocide, Musk has tacitly endorsed it by doing business in the East Turkistani capital of Urumqi, where Tesla maintains a showroom. Musk opened the Urumqi showroom in 2022, five years after the first reports surfaced of dictator Xi Jinping hauling millions of Uyghurs into concentration camps.
Musk returned to China as a beloved guest in 2023, welcomed by then-Foreign Minister Qin Gang and feted with luxury dinners and praise for Tesla.
“With a showroom in Urumchi, the capital of Occupied East Turkistan, and increasing presence in China, Tesla’s economic endeavors directly contribute to the brutal genocide of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples,” Salih Hudayar, the foreign minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile, told Breitbart News in 2023. “The harsh reality is that Uyghurs are subjected to forced labor, if not outright slavery, in extracting lithium for Tesla’s benefit. Tesla’s actions make them an accomplice in China’s horrifying campaign of genocide.”
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