Musk Publicly Praises China For Second Time This Month At Conference Held By China’s Cyberspace Administration

The latest leg of Elon Musk’s China ass kissing tour commenced this weekend in the form of a pre-recorded stream at the World Internet Conference, which was hosted by the Cyberspace Administration of China.

This marks the second instance this month where Musk took an opportunity to praise China for its work in the EV space.

Musk said that China was the “global leader in digitalization” during the event, CNBC reported.

Musk also continued by saying that Tesla would be expanding their investments in China: “My frank observation is that China spends a lot of resources and efforts applying the latest digital technologies in different industries, including the automobile industry, making China a global leader in digitalization. Tesla will continue to expand our investment and R&D efforts in China.”

The Tesla CEO also called out data protection, reassuring those listening that Tesla stores certain types of data locally.

“At Tesla, we are glad to see a number of laws and regulations that have been released to strengthen data management,” Musk said.

He continued: “Tesla has set up a data center in China to localize all data generated from our business here, including production, sales, service and charging. All personally identifiable information is security stores in China without being transferred overseas. Only in very rare cases, for example, spare parts orders from overseas is data approved for transfer internationally.”

We don’t know about you, but that sure makes us feel better.

Recall, we pointed out days ago when Musk praised Chinese automakers – also known as Tesla’s competition – as “the most competitive in the world”. Musk also said China had “great potential” as a nation for electric vehicles.

In another pre-recorded appearance at the World New Energy Vehicle Congress, Musk said: “I have a great deal of respect for the many Chinese automakers.”

Data security was also a topic Musk talked about, stating that it was the “cornerstone” of the EV industry as it develops.

Then Musk appeared to make a backhanded allusion that Tesla would be turning over whatever data the CCP wanted: “Tesla will work with national authorities in all countries to ensure data security of intelligence and connected vehicles. With the rapid growth of autonomous driving technologies, data security of vehicles is drawing more public concern than ever before.”

Musk continued: “Public sentiment and support for electric vehicles is at a never before seen inflection point because they know it is the future.”