#17
What's your view on China (competition, manufacturing)?
Interviews
8
Answers
17
X posts
8
Span
2023 to 2026
First asked Nov 9, 2023, most recently Sep 25, 2026. Excerpts below are from machine transcripts with filler words (um, uh, you know) and stutters removed; … marks a cut. They are not checked word for word, so use the link to hear the exact words, or the transcript link for the raw text. Timestamps: 8 cross-checked against YouTube captions, 9 from the archive transcript only. X has no link-to-time option, so X links open at the start.
How the answer evolved · oldest first
Nov 9, 2023 · Lex Fridman Podcast · asked by Lex Fridman
Q: What's some interesting things that you've learned about the Chinese?
Well, the sheer number of really smart, hard working people in China is incredible. There are really say like how many smart, hardworking people are there in China? There's far more of them there than there are here, I think, in my opinion. And they've got a lot of energy. So I mean the architecture in China that's in recent years is far more impressive than the U.S. I mean the train stations, the buildings, the …
Nov 29, 2023 · DealBook Summit · asked by Andrew Ross Sorkin
Q: Is there another car company that you think is doing a good job with EVs?
I mean, I think the Chinese car companies are extremely competitive. By far our Toughest competition is in China. So, I mean, there's a lot of people who out there who think that the top 10 car companies are going to be Tesla, followed by nine Chinese car companies. I think they might not be wrong. So China is super good at manufacturing and the work ethic is incredible. So like, if we consider different leagues of …
Dec 21, 2023 · X Spaces: Cathie Wood & Elon Musk · asked by Cathie Wood
Q: Elon, do you think think China is at a competitive advantage, its command and control?
I don't think China is not immune to the same forces that have driven excess regulation and laws in the United States or Europe. They I've certainly seen just in the course of our operations in China and China we've seen a quite a substantial increase in the regulatory burden. So you know, it's a lot harder to get things done now than it was 10 years ago. So What I'm saying is I think this is just a natural part of …
Apr 8, 2024 · In Good Company · asked by Nicolai Tangen
Q: Okay, well, we'll see. But where is China?
I don't know exactly where China is, except that there are a lot of very smart people in China and they won't be far behind the rest of the world or far behind the U.S. I mean, AI right now is very concentrated in San Francisco and London. And then there's a lot happening in China, but I don't have insight into what they're doing except that I'm confident they will not be far behind what is developed in the west. …
Apr 8, 2024 · In Good Company · asked by Nicolai Tangen
Q: How do you see the Chinese competition here now?
We generally find that the companies in China are the most competitive in the world and certainly in electric vehicles or cars in general. The Chinese car companies are by far the most competitive. Yeah, that's where we find the most toughest competitive challenges. They make great cars and they work very hard.
Apr 8, 2024 · In Good Company · asked by Nicolai Tangen
Q: I mean you're an engineer, you know, what about it? What do you, what do you think?
I haven't written, I have not ridden in one lately. But because they're not all available here in the U.S. Very few are available in the U.S. Some are available in Europe but from what my team tells me they are very good.
Mar 17, 2025 · Verdict with Ted Cruz · asked by Ted Cruz
Q: How likely are we winning right now? Is America winning right now?
… I think America is likely to win. Then it will be a function of who controls the AI chip fabrication, the factories that make the AI chips. Who controls them if they are controlled. If more of them are controlled by China, then China will win more.
Mar 17, 2025 · Verdict with Ted Cruz · asked by Ted Cruz
Q: What happens if China, China invades Taiwan? What happens to the world?
Well, if they were to invade in the near term, the world would be cut off from advanced AI chips. Currently, 100% of advanced AI chips are made in Taiwan.
Feb 5, 2026 · Dwarkesh Podcast · asked by Co-interviewer
Q: Like you think about things like when there are now the drone industry and things like that, but is that something that should be considered?
Well, I think it's important to appreciate that in most areas China is very advanced in manufacturing. There's only a few areas where it is not the China is a manufacturing powerhouse next level. Like people don't.
Jul 23, 2026 · The Economist: Interview with Elon Musk · asked by Zanny Minton Beddoes
Q: Just before we get onto to releasing, how do you think about the Chinese models and the geopolitics of it?
Up and getting ahead, given that the Chinese AI companies are. Are doing as well as they are with a relatively small amount of computer? It seems that if they had a lot of compute, there's a good chance that they would be the leaders. And at some point they probably will have a lot of compute.
Jul 23, 2026 · The Economist: Interview with Elon Musk · asked by Zanny Minton Beddoes
Q: Do you think they should ban the use of K3?
Well, the US government can't. They can pass some law that prevents U.S. Companies from using Chinese models, but they can't stop the rest of the world from using them. So it's not like the US government has authority over China or the rest of the world.
Jul 23, 2026 · The Economist: Interview with Elon Musk · asked by Zanny Minton Beddoes
Q: Do you think they should stop US companies from using them?
I don't think that helps. That won't stop China from being the leader in AI really. It's for digital intelligence. It comes down to how much AI compute do you have? Well, how many chips do you have and how much power do you have? How much electricity do you have? So the constraint right now, I think is actually slightly more on power and cooling than it is on AI chips. Because the power demands of the air chips are …
Sep 25, 2026 · Interview with CCTV · asked by CMG interviewer
Q: What's your impression about President Xi as a leader?
Well, he seems like a great leader. I mean he's. Under his tenure, China has prospered immensely. I mean, I've seen it firsthand, like if you visit China and you see the amount of progress that happens from one year to the next or even within a year, it's very visible. Like you can see the new buildings, the new infrastructure and it's also obvious to see that just walking around the streets, the increased …
Sep 25, 2026 · Interview with CCTV · asked by CMG interviewer
Q: And what ultimate kind of confidence do you think this will unfold, especially in the market?
Well, I mean, China just has a very strong inherent ability to do manufacturing well. And this has been true not just in present days, but for the past two or three thousand years. I think that to be totally frank, the magic of Tesla Shanghai is because of Chinese. In China at least, what we have is the Tesla China team is just incredibly talented and hard working and trustworthy and they have, the quality is …
Sep 25, 2026 · Interview with CCTV · asked by CMG interviewer
Q: So currently, what's the most impression breakthroughs for Chinese models in your understanding?
Well, the Chinese AI models are generally outstanding actually. I mean you can see on the sort of intelligence rankings there, especially given the limited amount of compute that the Chinese AI companies have, the performance is excellent. Probably China's doing by far the best in terms of performance per unit of compute. And as I've said publicly I think China is going to address the compute limitation in I think …
Sep 25, 2026 · Interview with CCTV · asked by CMG interviewer
Q: And can you elaborate a little bit more about this gap?
I mean it's just a statement of fact that China I think is like earlier this year China passed the electricity output of the United States, Europe and India combined. Wow. Yeah, exactly. And continuing to increase significantly. So if China reaches the same GDP electricity output as the US which I think is likely, then China would go from where it is now roughly three times the U.S. Electricity production to …
Sep 25, 2026 · Interview with CCTV · asked by CMG interviewer
Q: If you, you kind of have one opportunity to bring one American entrepreneur for visiting China for the welfare sign, what will be the most experience you want him to have first?
Well, I would generally recommend, I mean, as much time as that person can vote to China, they should, because China's got so many things to see. So I don't mean to, I mean, but like, usually people don't have, they don't have infinite time, so at a minimum they should see, obviously, Shanghai, Beijing. I recommend Xi' an, the Terracotta Warriors. I took the bullet train from Beijing to Xi'.
In his own posts on X
@elonmusk · Jun 20, 2024
@SawyerMerritt The Chinese automakers are by far the most competitive
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Mar 1, 2026
China is moving rapidly to a solar/electric future with very little need for oil or gas https://t.co/mOBg3NtZkY
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Mar 2, 2026
Yeah, I will be surprised if domestic chip production in China is not competitive with Taiwan in raw compute, albeit less power efficient, within 3 to 5 years. There are also significant diminishing returns to reducing element size on a chip and some things, like SRAM, just don’t scale down.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Mar 8, 2026
China is rapidly reducing dependence on oil https://t.co/xwmxZ9ZmXq
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Oct 12, 2026
@MelvinInvests When China figures out how to manufacture a product, their ability to scale is often greater than the rest of the world combined. We saw this with lithium batteries and solar, for example. SpaceX is a rare counter-example, where its mass to orbit is roughly an order of magnitude greater than the rest of the world, BUT China now does a majority of non-SpaceX mass to orbit. SpaceX is an anomaly in the matrix. Maybe RAM will be different, but RAM was a low margin commodity only ~3 years ago. LP5 and LP6 are designed to a common standard that China seems to be solving fast. Newer HBM architectures and things like an SRAM layer below logic and 3D stacking RAM on top of logic while finding a way to keep the logic cooled will be harder to solve.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Oct 14, 2026
China will be making a LOT of RAM in 2028 https://t.co/RiBFTe6JIC
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Oct 15, 2026
China’s dependency on oil is dropping fast https://t.co/szVRvsJbTo
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Oct 16, 2026
@zerohedge For sure in 2027, but if China ramps LP5 & LP6 as fast as they’ve ramped other manufactured products, then 2028 will be a different story. HBM is a tougher hill to climb, however.
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