Taiwan criticizes Elon Musk: ‘Not for sale’

Tesla and X owner Elon Musk stirred controversy over his comments about Taiwan on a podcast recently, earning him a direct response from Taiwan's foreign minister.

Taiwan’s foreign minister Joseph Wu Jaushieh has a message for billionaire Elon Musk — Taiwan is “not for sale.”

This comes after the Tesla founder claimed that the country was an “integral part” of China.

“I think I understand China well, I’ve been there many times,” Musk said in a podcast interview. He compared Taiwan to the U.S. state of Hawaii and said Taiwan was “an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China, mostly because the U.S. has stopped any reunification efforts.”

Joseph Wu Jaushieh took to X, formerly Twitter, to criticize Musk’s comments.

“Listen up, #Taiwan is not part of the #PRC (People’s Republic of China) & certainly not for sale!” Wu said, using his official ministry X account.

Jaushieh also asked Musk to take a stand against China’s blocking of his own social media website, X: “Hope @elonmusk can also ask the #CCP to open @X to its people. Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off @Starlink to thwart #Ukraine’s counterstrike against #Russia.”

This is not the first time Elon Musk has waded into the Taiwan issue, often seen as echoing the views of the Chinese Communist Party on the matter.

In October of last year, Musk spoke to The Financial Times in an interview and said the two governments could reach a “reasonably palatable” agreement.