- [Narrator] Elon Musk
has had a good relationship with China.
(camera shutters clicking)
He's met with the Chinese Premier
and he has lavished praise in the country.
- We went to very much say thank you and appreciation
for the Shanghai government and their support.
- [Narrator] The relationship has helped Tesla's CEO
to access China's key market
and build the company's largest factory there.
- China, I think long-term will be our biggest market.
- [Narrator] And now that Musk is buying Twitter
and promising to promote free speech.
Tesla's reliance on Beijing
is becoming a source of concern for employees
at the social media company, as well as researchers.
They question whether software policies on Twitter
could allow misinformation to spread.
- The concerns here are that China
could leverage Tesla's operations in the country
to squeeze out some concessions for itself on Twitter.
- [Narrator] While China has blocked Twitter
inside its borders,
its government has increasingly used the platform
to promote propaganda abroad.
Here's how that could put Elon Musk in a delicate position.
(car honking)
First, you need to know why China's so important for Tesla.
In 2019, Musk broke ground
on Tesla's first factory outside the US
and made it the first automaker in China
fully owned and operated by a foreign company.
(crowd cheering)
And since it started delivering cars later that year,
China the world's biggest market for electric cars
has also become one of the most lucrative.
In 2021, more than a quarter
of Tesla's revenue came from China.
And in the same year,
the company sold more than 470,000 cars
made at the Shanghai Gigafactory.
That's more than half of the vehicles
Tesla delivered globally.
- In China, Elon Musk is wildly popular,
both with the public and with government officials.
To the Chinese public,
he's seen as this Maverick entrepreneur
that has no qualms against pushing back against authority.
And to the Chinese government,
he's seen as like the shining beacon,
because a company like his, Tesla,
has the technology and expertise
to lift China's entire electric vehicle industry.
- [Narrator] But as Tesla grows more dependent on China,
academics and other Western observers say that Beijing
could in turn gain more leverage
over Musk's Twitter business.
- What people are particularly concerned about
is the fact that China has in the past
uses access to the large consumer market
to squeeze foreign companies in order to make them
do something that is aligned
with China's own political goals and aims.
- [Narrator] For instance, about a year ago,
the Swedish clothing retailer H&M
was effectively wiped off the Chinese internet
after deciding to stop sourcing cotton from Xinjiang
because of forced labor allegations there
which China has strongly denied.
(speaking in Mandarin)
In 2019, the National Basketball Association
also felt the pain after Houston Rockets Executive
tweeted to support pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong
which prompted Chinese sponsors to cut business ties
costing the league hundreds of millions of dollars.
So, after Musk pulled off a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter
promising more free speech on the platform,
he will also face a higher risk of upsetting Beijing.
- Tesla is largely beholden to Beijing's goodwill
when it comes to manufacturing, production, stoppages,
supply chain, everything.
- [Narrator] Twitter declined to comment.
Tesla and Musk didn't respond to our request for comment.
And when asked whether China could use
Tesla's leverage against Musk,
the Foreign Ministry spokesperson brushed off the question.
(speaking in Mandarin)
Some Twitter employees say concerns are justified.
Musk's acquisition comes at an opportune time
for the Chinese government.
Since the start of the pandemic,
Beijing officials have been heavily using Twitter
to criticize international media
and promote its views on controversial subjects.
- [Liza] Some of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespeople
and their ambassadors globally
have huge followings on Twitter.
And what they typically do is they tend to amplify
Chinese state media coming out to talk about topics
such as Hong Kong independence, talking about Xinjiang,
talking about COVID.
- [Narrator] In 2019,
Twitter is one of the first social media companies
to take steps to ban state media and political advertising.
The worry is that he could abolish
some of the content policies that Twitter has set up
to sieve out fake news and misinformation on the platform.
And this could allow more Chinese government
influence campaigns on Twitter.
- [Narrator] To regulate the spread of misinformation,
Twitter has also been labeling the accounts
of government officials and state media
from countries such as China and Russia
and says it has been taking down fake accounts
or bots associated with the Chinese government.
- Twitter has always faced a large challenge
trying to regulate Chinese state sponsors
social media campaigns and fake news campaigns.
And now, this Twitter problem
will become an Elon Musk problem.
And the worry with that is Elon Musk has a lot more exposure
to the Chinese market than Twitter ever had.
- [Narrator] Elon Musk has said that free speech
should be within the law, but hasn't said how he plans
to approach Chinese government accounts.
Jeff Bezos, who often spars with Musk on social media
has suggested that the deal
could increase Twitter's exposure to pressure from Beijing.
He also tweeted that could result in more complexity
in China for Tesla.
Adding that Musk is extremely good at navigating complexity.