The Musk-China relationship isn’t a one-way street. Beijing has a stake in Tesla’s success, giving Musk his own leverage, because it has depicted the company as a symbol of its openness to foreign investment and the Shanghai plant as a highlight of President Xi Jinping’s economic policies.

Musk has considerable business interests in China through his electric vehicle company Tesla, making him one of the few people in the world with a line to both Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. That gives Xi a “friend with influence” in Washington,