'Pro-Free Speech'? CCP Gives Elon Musk Tax Exemption after Pro-Taiwan Takeover Comments
“To make a long story short, he basically said that Taiwan should ‘re-join’ mainland China. . .So, right after that, China un-taxed—removed the tax burden off Elon Musk.” —The China Show
There’s nothing says “I’m pro-free speech” like openly pandering to an authoritarian surveillance state, am I right? Well, Elon Musk would appear to agree with that, at least, based on his recent actions. As conservatives and other canceled individuals rejoice at Musk’s Twitter takeover (including his firing of executives who should be fired) and look forward to what is hopefully a freer future on the platform, Musk’s pontificating on his dedication to free speech is (as usual) ringing a little hollow. And that hollow ring has echoes of China.
Musk may be thoroughly sincere in his desire to make Twitter more free. I would be cautious about trusting a man who wants to implant brain chips in people and create a full “brain interface,” especially since he could very well turn Twitter into his own metaverse complete with direct connection to your brain, but I’m told I’m a cynic. In any case, Musk’s willingness to suck up to a regime running the most authoritarian surveillance state on the planet—the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—would seem to argue for a little healthy distrust. And evidence presented a couple weeks ago by the hosts of The China Show supports my argument.
Winston and Matt were once the first YouTubers in China. Forced to leave after uncovering things the CCP wanted buried deeper than Hunter Biden’s decency, they now host a podcast uncovering a lot of the facts about China the West would like to ignore. On the week of Oct. 17, Winston and Matt discussed a story which I covered for PJ Media—the fact that Elon Musk said the independent and democratic nation of Taiwan should actually belong to the genocidal CCP. Chinese state media was enchanted with Musk’s comments.
Winston said he knows there are a lot of fans of Elon Musk. Even I, who think he’s a CCP-beholden, untrustworthy transhumanist, have some hopes for his takeover of Twitter (The Babylon Bee is back. That’s a great start in my book). But, as Winston noted, Musk should be called out for his problematic China ties.1
“[Winston:] I myself really think that a lot of the things he’s done are fantastic, but of course it doesn’t excuse a person’s bad behavior just ‘cause they’ve [sic] done a couple of good things, or done a lot of good things even… Elon Musk has made some terrible mistakes when it comes to China and Taiwan recently…
[Matt:] To make a long story short, he basically said that Taiwan should ‘re-join’ mainland China…but they should be given, like, a high degree of autonomy. And China ran with it…they loved it. And then everyone’s like, ‘What are you doing? What, do you mean like Hong Kong? You know, the territory that they just steam-rolled?’...
[Winston:] Well, explain to everybody what happened three days later.
[Matt:] So, right after that, China un-taxed—removed the tax burden off Elon Musk for his production of Teslas in China.
[Winston:] Yeah, for the sales tax on certain Tesla models, they’re exempt from tax… Elon Musk, you know, helping out the [Chinese] Communist Party, they help him out… There is a very well-known agreement, that’s an unspoken agreement, and that is, if you praise the Communist Party of China, then you will do well in China. And if you criticize the Communist Party of China, go against it, then you will not do well in China.”
Two other interesting facts about doing business in China are that the government directly surveils and can access any information it requests from companies, and China practices “civil-military fusion”—that is, everything in the economic and tech spheres is accessible to the Chinese military. And remember, the CCP is the greatest mass murderer of all time, responsible for up to 500 million deaths.
And yet Musk also recently wrote an article for China Cyberspace, “run by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the central agency for internet control and regulation,” according to a translation of the article on the Substack Beijing Channel and The Post Millennial. In the piece, Musk pushed increased Chinese investment in his various projects, including AI and brain chips.
As a recent example of the CCP’s total authoritarianism, Winston and Matt also discussed a protest in Beijing2 where a brave man hung a banner slamming CCP dictator Xi Jinping and his regime over a major highway and set tires on fire to ensure he would attract attention. Within hours, the man was arrested (and, as Winston and Matt noted, probably executed or jailed for life) and a big show of support for the man on Chinese social media was completely shut down by the government. Not only were accounts supporting the brave protestor shut down, even the city name “Beijing” was censored on Weibo to prevent searches for the protest. The protest occurred near Tiananmen Square, where the famous massacre of anti-CCP protestors by the Chinese army occurred in 1989.
All that to say? Elon Musk should quit courting favors from the genocidal, anti-free speech CCP and start living up to his own stated beliefs, or he’s just a clever hypocrite.
The discussion of this topic begins around 11:59 in the linked video.
Starts around 24:00 in the linked video.
Henry IV was a Huguenot when he inherited the throne of France. Paris was the most important centre of his kingdom, and Catholic.
So Henry very publicly went to Mass at the Saint-Denis Basilica allegedly saying ‘Paris is worth a Mass.’
I wouldn’t say Musk is a hypocrite so much as a cynic in this instance. For an equivocal statement re Taiwan, suggesting exactly what the Brits do in Northern Ireland, he gets a tax break.
I think he is also very shortsighted and did not take into account the dismay of millions of free Taiwanese people at the thought of being handed to the bloody repressive incompetent thugs of the Communist Party.