Chinese state media warns Elon Musk over ‘lab leak’ coronavirus tweets
March 1, 2023
The Global Times, a daily tabloid newspaper run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), warned Tesla CEO Elon Musk for pushing the COVID-19 “lab leak” theory.
On Feb. 27, Musk responded to a tweet that questioned whether Anthony S. Fauci, the former chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, funded the creation of the coronavirus, which refers to the conspiracy theory that the virus originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab.
The Global Times, which was designated as a “foreign mission” by the Trump administration in 2020, called out Musk in a post and said that his tweets and retweets are being used to “frame” China.
According to reporter Eunice Yoon of CNBC, the Global Times’ social media post asked if Musk is “breaking the pot of China,” which has a meaning similar to asking if he was biting the hand that feeds him.
China is Tesla’s second-largest market and is home to one of the electric vehicle manufacturer’s gigafactories. China is also a source of materials that are key to making electric cars.
The Wall Street Journal first reported of a classified Energy Department assessment concluding with “low confidence” that the COVID-19 pandemic began in a Wuhan laboratory.
Following the news, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson called for the U.S. government to “stop defaming China” and “politicizing” the process of tracing the origins of the virus.
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