Elon Musk arrives in China days after postponing India visit

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk on Sunday arrived in Beijing, days after he deferred his scheduled visit to India.

Tesla's chief executive Elon Musk.(Reuters file)

"At the invitation of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Tesla (US) CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing this afternoon," Chinese state broadcaster CCTV was quoted by Reuters as saying.

According to a Bloomberg report, Musk is in China for talks on Tesla's Full Self-Driving, or FSD, in the Communist-ruled nation. 

As per the report, Tesla is working on getting FSD, the most advanced version of its Autopilot technology, into new markets. Its vehicles have been banned from military compounds in China and some other government venues in the past, likely due to cybersecurity concerns over the cameras installed in the vehicles to operate.

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Earlier this month, Musk had said at Tesla's earnings call,"“So we plan on, with the approval of the regulators, releasing it as a supervised autonomy system in any market that — where we can get regulatory approval for that, which we think includes China."

Tesla is going through its biggest job cull, and losing key executives in the process. It has reduced prices of EVs in key markets such as the US and China. Then came the dismal earnings, buttressed by a pledge from the company to launch lower-cost EVs as soon as this year to address its anemic growth outlook.

Tesla’s Shanghai factory, established in 2019, produces over half of the electric carmaker’s global deliveries. China media reported that Tesla axed all Chinese graduate offers in its latest round of job cuts, the report added.

The China visit comes days after Musk deferred his high-profile visit to India.  “Unfortunately, very heavy Tesla obligations require that the visit to India be delayed, but I do very much look forward to visiting later this year,” the billionaire posted on X, the social platform he bought in 2022.

(With Reuters, Bloomberg inputs)