By Katrina Northrop and Vic Chiang, Washington Post
Elon Musk’s Tesla on Tuesday opened an enormous $200 million battery plant in Shanghai, near its car-making Gigafactory, deepening the company’s investment in China even as its CEO serves in an administration picking a trade war with Beijing.
Musk has been busy in Washington — he is spearheading President Donald Trump’s effort to radically reshape the federal government through his U.S. DOGE Service — and did not attend the ceremony in China.
But the new factory underscores his unusual position as economic tensions between the United States and China escalate.
“If he’s not playing things right on the edge, Elon Musk is not comfortable, so he’s in his element,” said Michael Dunne, a China auto industry consultant, adding that it reflected Musk’s apparent belief that he would innovate faster than everyone else, keeping him in good standing in China.
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