Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu criticized Elon Musk on Thursday for comments the tech billionaire made suggesting the island was still “part of China.”
Musk, who spoke remotely at the All-in Summit that took place this week in Los Angeles, said Beijing’s policy has been to reunite Taiwan and China. He added he has a “pretty good understanding, at least as an outsider, of China.”
“From their standpoint, you know, maybe it’s analogous to like Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because … the U.S. Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification by force,” he added.
Taiwan is a democratic island that China has long claimed as part of its territory. Hawaii, on the other hand, has been an official U.S. state since 1959.
Wu took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to call out Musk for his comments.
“Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the [People’s Republic of China] & certainly not for sale!” Wu posted on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs account.
The Taiwanese foreign minister added that he hopes Musk can also ask the Chinese Communist Party to allow its people to use X — which the Tesla CEO purchased in October 2022.
Social media platforms, including X, are censored in mainland China by authorities.
Musk has not masked his relationship with China — even traveling earlier this year to Shanghai to meet with officials and tour his Tesla factory in the city.