{"id":33311,"date":"2025-07-02T19:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/33311\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T19:00:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:00:13","slug":"a-billion-people-backing-you-china-transfixed-as-musk-turns-against-trump-elon-musk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/33311\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A billion people backing you\u2019: China transfixed as Musk turns against Trump | Elon Musk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few break-ups have as many gossiping observers as the fallout between the once inseparable Donald Trump<\/a> and Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

The ill-fated bromance between the US president and the world\u2019s richest man, which once raised questions about American oligarchy, is now being pored over by social media users in China<\/a>, many of whom are Team Musk.<\/p>\n

The latest drama comes from Musk\u2019s pledge to found a new political party<\/a>, the America party, if Trump\u2019s sweeping tax and spending bill, which Musk described as \u201cinsane\u201d passed the Senate this week (it did<\/a>). Musk had already vowed to unseat lawmakers who backed Trump\u2019s flagship piece of legislation, which is expected to increase US national debt by $3.3tn.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, hours after the bill passed the US Senate, the hashtag #MuskWantsToBuildAnAmericaParty went viral on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform similar to Musk\u2019s X, receiving more than 37m views.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Elon Musk<\/a> were to found a political party, his tech-driven mindset could inject fresh energy into politics. The potential for change is significant \u2013 and worth watching,\u201d wrote one Weibo user.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019ve had enough, there\u2019s no need to keep putting up with it,\u201d wrote another.<\/p>\n

One comment summed up the mood on the platform: \u201c<\/strong>Brother Musk, you\u2019ve got over a billion people on our side backing you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is widely venerated in China for his business acumen and technological achievements. Tesla\u2019s electric vehicles are the only western brand on Chinese roads<\/a> that can rival domestic firms, and the company\u2019s biggest factory by volume is in Shanghai. Musk is known to have a close relationship with China\u2019s premier, Li Qiang<\/a>, while Musk\u2019s mother, Maye Musk<\/a>, is a social media celebrity in her own right in China.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s popularity in China follows a well-established trend of Chinese audiences enthusiastically embracing US tech innovators. Walter Isaacson\u2019s biography of Steve Jobs was a bestseller in China, as was his biography of Musk.<\/p>\n

Trump, however, is seen by many as being an unpredictable funnyman who has launched the most aggressive trade war on China in recent history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some internet users commented that Trump and Musk should grow up. \u201cThese two grown men argue nonstop over the smallest things \u2013 and the whole world ends up knowing about it,\u201d wrote one user, while another joked: \u201cEvery day, Musk is basically live-streaming \u2018How Billionaires Argue\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

The conversation has been allowed to flourish on China\u2019s tightly controlled social media, suggesting that at least some censors are betting that the US political chaos could be no bad thing for China.<\/p>\n

Additional research by Lillian Yang<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few break-ups have as many gossiping observers as the fallout between the once inseparable Donald Trump and Elon…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-33311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114785184871598826","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}