Musk made this as clear as he could in a video link to a conference in Beijing on Saturday after the Chinese authorities introduced a ban on the military and employees of some important state-owned companies driving Tesla.
China is concerned that data collected in Tesla cars, such as photos taken by car cameras, could be sent to the United States, writes the Wall Street Journal. The United States fears the same from Huawei.
The Chinese market is of enormous importance to Tesla, which has a factory in Shanghai and sells a quarter of all its cars in the country. Tesla hopes to sell 200,000 cars in China this year.
– Do not take the chance
Musk made it clear that no American or Chinese company would take the chance to collect private data and share with their governments, and that all data collected in Tesla cars would remain secret.
He said the consequences of engaging in espionage would be extremely negative, and that if Tesla did something like that, the company would be shut down everywhere. This is a strong incentive to never embark on something like this, he emphasized.
China fears that corporate data collection will jeopardize national security, and these concerns are expressed in the midst of conflicts between China and the West over technology and trade.
Fear Huawei
The United States has the same fears about China, and last week the United States classified Huawei and four other Chinese telecommunications companies as a threat to US national security.
Huawei was blocked by the Trump administration as early as 2019, without any concrete evidence being presented that their equipment would be used for espionage by monitoring communications and data traffic in other countries.
The Trump administration also accused Tiktok, who is popular with young people with his short video clips, of collecting data shared with Beijing.
On Saturday, Musk called the United States’ fear of Tiktok irrational and said that the platform primarily shows people dancing ridiculous dances.
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