Introduction

In other words, Tesla's wholly-owned operation in China is also a winning bet made by China's industrial sector and even the decision-making layer.

"We have welcomed a new star; a star is born: Elon!" On the afternoon of the 6th of this month, at a special rally announcing his victory in the 60th US presidential election, Donald Trump praised the top contributor to his victory in front of thousands of supporters and media reporters:

"He is an amazing person. The reason we can sit together tonight is because he spent two weeks campaigning in different regions of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania (for me)."

Image|King of Understanding: This "young man" is not bad!

If you have been paying attention to Trump since 2016, you should understand that "King of Understanding" loves to take all the credit for himself, portraying an all-knowing and all-powerful "chosen one." Such unreserved praise is extremely rare. Especially since he publicly acknowledged Elon Musk's indispensable value to his successful election.

Even more exaggeratedly, in the subsequent impromptu speech, "King of Understanding" began to rave about the important industries under Elon's control. From SpaceX's recent major breakthrough in "clamping" the first stage of the Starship to its Starlink project helping restore internet access to people disconnected during the recent hurricane disaster in North Carolina.

"It's incredible that he accomplished all these achievements so quickly," Trump commented. But the most crucial part is yet to come. As a "conservative" who has long criticized the Democratic Party's new energy strategy on various channels, adhered to traditional energy views, and demanded promoting the advantages of the US, an oil-rich country, in the field of traditional fossil energy, he unexpectedly praised Tesla cars, hailing them as a symbol of American pioneering spirit.

Image|In this election, the operation of conducting a lottery after voting in the "swing states" that "determine life and death" can be regarded as a masterstroke under the unique American political model

Undoubtedly, in addition to Donald Trump, who was elected as the 47th President of the United States, Elon Musk can also be considered a "winner" in this US presidential election. With his sharp vision, decisive betting, and generous hand, calling him the "Gambling King" of the American business world is not the least bit exaggerated.

Reversal and Compensation

For Chinese people who generally believe that victory is justice, there will naturally be plenty of people to argue on your behalf after winning. Elon Musk, who has now become the flag-bearer of American technology enterprises and whose status is comparable to that of Steve Jobs, is a typical example of this. Of course, the untypical part is that he has the full capability to write his own "story."

As everyone knows, Elon Musk was once a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party in the United States. So staunch that during the 2016 US presidential election, he also led the charge against Trump and declared that he believed "King of Understanding" was the right presidential candidate. Then, at the end of April 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was raging across the US, he again led the challenge against the lockdown policy implemented by the Trump administration at the time and called on "Give freedom back to the people!" on his Twitter page.

Image|During the pandemic, Musk was one of the fiercest opponents of "King of Understanding," known for his sharp tongue

But people change. Since last year, Elon Musk has gradually shown a clear "rightward tilt" in various statements. Even though he has organized effective self-defense rhetoric—I was clearly more "liberal" when society as a whole tended to be conservative, so I was a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party at the time. However, the world changes too quickly, and without changing my stance, I appear "conservative."

In fact, since the election campaign intensified in the second half of this year and Musk began to actually involve himself in "King of Understanding's" affairs, a small incident occurred. In July of this year, Musk met with Trump. But that meeting did not seem to go smoothly, and it is not clear whether it was due to Musk's high demands. In any case, they could not immediately agree on the issue of benefit exchange after campaigning.

Regarding this "disharmonious" incident, the global internet community also timely inserted related topics about Musk's eldest son's gender transition. On both sides of the Pacific Ocean, there is a widespread rumor in the community that Musk bears a grudge against the Democratic Party for this reason and will never forgive them.

But in fact, much of this information is embellished.

For example, Xavier Alexander Musk, who has since changed back to his mother's surname and named himself Vivian, is actually the oldest of Elon Musk's surviving children. His first child with his first wife, Justine Wilson, was born in 2000 but passed away two and a half months after birth. In fact, this Vivian/Xavier was one of the twins conceived through in vitro fertilization after the eldest son's death.

Image|Musk and his first wife, Justine Wilson, met during their student days. She gave birth to six sons for him, all through in vitro fertilization and delivered in two pregnancies, resulting in twins and triplets, except for the eldest son who passed away.

So far, the total number of children this tycoon has had within and outside of marriage, excluding the deceased eldest son and the transgender eldest son who turned against him, still amounts to ten. The so-called "implacable hatred" towards the Democratic Party due to the "birth and upbringing" of the eldest son is undoubtedly content imagined by his Chinese supporters based on their own values. In reality, Elon Musk is neither monogamous nor particularly sentimental in his emotional life. For example, his ex-wife, Justine Wilson, once sought help from him due to financial problems, but Musk dismissed the matter by simply giving her a Tesla car.

This is not to say that Musk's reversal to the Trump camp and his efforts to help him win the election have absolutely nothing to do with related grievances. After all, human nature is complex. However, if SpaceX and Tesla are used as references, Musk's achievements today are undoubtedly based on a fundamental premise of being down-to-earth and pursuing tangible benefits.

Profit and Loss

According to Musk himself, he is a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, having voted for Democratic candidates all the way from Obama and Hillary to Biden at the beginning of his win in the 2021 election, and even mobilizing all his friends and family to vote.

However, the change also began in early 2022.

As Biden and his staff and advisors began to allocate more resources to the transformation of traditional automakers like Ford, and even began to show a tendency to support new auto manufacturing forces like Lucid, Fisker, and Rivian, relations between Musk and the Democratic Party leaders began to deteriorate.

Image|"Sleepy Joe" has made many car-related appearances in his first two years in office, but he has never shown support for Musk. Musk has always been very upset about this and has mentioned it multiple times on his X page.

Perhaps from the perspective of the Biden administration, the US new energy vehicle industry cannot be dominated by Tesla alone, and traditional automakers like GM and Ford are also related to a large number of jobs, so they cannot be neglected. However, as the saying goes, "where one stands determines one's perspective." From Musk's perspective and interests, the Biden administration's actions are a trampling on his interests and even Tesla's position as a global leader in the electric vehicle industry. From the perspective of his own company, he naturally does not need to view issues from any "broader perspective."

In reality, the Democratic Party also finds Musk's behavior intolerable.

In September of this year, using the remarks of Secretary Gina Raimondo about "preventing foreign adversaries from controlling millions of vehicles on American roads," the US Department of Commerce initiated a proposed rule to restrict Chinese connected vehicle software, hardware, and complete vehicles. In a document submitted to the Department of Commerce at the time, Miriam Ekabo, Tesla's trade advisor, accused the Department of Commerce of imposing "unnecessary regulatory burdens on software designed by non-Americans" through many of its regulations.

Image|She seems to be in the news often, but besides "endorsing Huawei," it's hard to recall what Gina Raimondo has specifically done...

Considering the current state of American automakers, it is difficult to say that GM, Ford, and even the currently less pure Stellantis will be affected by this regulation. On the contrary, since Tesla needs to conduct some development work in China, and in reality, the production of Tesla vehicles is inseparable from China's supply chain, it will undoubtedly be the first to be restricted.

Just a few days before this dramatic election, which has undergone multiple reversals, came to an end, on November 3, Tesla issued a statement fiercely criticizing the current Biden administration's proposed plan to ban US auto companies from importing high-tech components and subsystems from overseas, especially those from China or Russia, as "a huge and ultimately unnecessary regulatory reporting system."

Tesla believes that if this ban is to be implemented, manufacturers will need to submit detailed information on all relevant suppliers, which will undoubtedly "impose unnecessary regulatory burdens" on Tesla and the entire US auto manufacturing industry.

Image|"I really hope we have a normal president," Musk said bluntly in a media interview in mid-May last year.

It is difficult to say who fired the "first shot" between the committee formulating automotive industry policies by the Democratic Party and Musk. According to common sense, the conception of related policies often dates back much earlier than their initial announcement. This makes Musk's "reversal" itself less dramatically interpretable, highlighting higher-level conflicts of interest and their ultimate outcomes.

For Musk, the exchange for helping "King of Understanding" come to power is undoubtedly to gain the qualification to deeply participate in formulating the US new energy vehicle strategy during his term, and even participate in the strategic aspects related to the Chinese industry. After all, Tesla is directly related to the amount of his personal wealth, and the company's largest market and most reliable production base worldwide are both in China.

In July 2018, when Tesla was on the verge of collapse, China announced the liberalization of the automotive market to allow wholly foreign-owned enterprises. Tesla, which had already begun negotiations to enter China as early as 2017, was the first to apply and obtain land.

On January 7, 2019, the groundbreaking ceremony for Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory was held. On December 30 of the same year, the first batch of locally produced Model 3 vehicles were officially delivered to employee owners at the Shanghai factory.

On January 7, 2020, one year after the groundbreaking ceremony of the factory, Elon Musk visited Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory to attend the delivery ceremony of the first batch of locally produced Model 3 vehicles to social owners.

Image|Since then, although there have been setbacks in technological development, market decisions and political alignments seem to have been winning all the way

A few months later, the global COVID-19 pandemic struck, and Chinese factories and even the Chinese market became the only haven for Tesla and even many other global automotive brands during the prolonged pandemic...

In the past six years, whenever Tesla has faced critical historical periods with major decisions, Musk's ability to keep the rhythm and make the right bets has undoubtedly earned the sincere admiration of everyone.

Especially considering unforeseen black swan events like the global COVID-19 pandemic. But this also illustrates that the so-called "Gambling King" actually has no systematic strategy. His approach is more like skating on a watermelon rind, using extremely high adaptability to glide wherever he can and then choosing the most critical nodes to place his bets.

This full support for "ALL IN" on Trump since July is undoubtedly a classic example of such operations.

Musk will undoubtedly benefit greatly from this. But to a large extent, China's automotive industry and even many foreign trade-related industries will also gain value from it.

Image|The number of "ballasts" between China and the United States has begun to rebound from the bottom

After all, as it becomes increasingly difficult for China and the United States to find common values and interests, and the "ballasts" that once laid the foundation for the relationship between the two countries are becoming increasingly scarce over time, as an entrepreneur with huge interests in China and also a Musk who holds significant public influence and the status of a "referee" in the United States, he is undoubtedly a windfall.