Elon Musk meets Chinese Premier Li Qiang

Beijing: Elon Musk, the founder of the well-known US company Tesla, met with the Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang.

Elon Musk on Sunday confirmed his meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang on his social media platform X.

He wrote in his post that it is an honor to meet with Premier Li Qiang.

“We have known each other now for many years, since early Shanghai day,” added Musk.

Honored to meet with Premier Li Qiang.

We have known each other now for many years, since early Shanghai days. pic.twitter.com/JCnv6MbZ6W

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 28, 2024

Elon Musk arrived in China yesterday on an unannounced visit to introduce Full Self-Driving, or FSD, the most autonomous version of Tesla's Autopilot software in China, and to share data collected from China abroad. Meetings with several senior Chinese officials are expected to discuss permission to move.

The company has stored all data collected by its Chinese team at its facility in Shanghai since 2021, as required by Chinese regulators, and has not yet transferred data collected from China to the US.

It is pertinent to note that Tesla made the first agreement with the Chinese authorities to set up its own plant in Shanghai in 2018, which was the first plant of the company to be set up in any country outside the United States.

Currently, there is no news regarding whether Elon Musk, in the meeting with the Chinese Premier Li Qiang, has discussed to introduce Full Self-Driving or FSD in China and transferred the data collected from China to abroad in this regard.

Notably, rival Chinese automakers such as Xpeng are trying to gain an edge over Tesla by developing similar software.