Musk joins Trump China delegation as Tesla seeks regulatory gains

Elon Musk’s return to Donald Trump’s side in Beijing put Tesla’s China dependence at the center of a summit that was supposed to be about trade, tariffs, artificial intelligence, rare earths and Taiwan. More than a dozen U.S. business leaders were traveling with the delegation, which the White House cast as part of a broad push to engage Chinese officials on commercial ties.

The business group appeared to be built around executives trying to work through long-running problems with Beijing, and Musk stood out because of what Tesla needs from China and what China still gets from Tesla. Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory is the company’s first wholly foreign-owned automotive plant in China, and it remains one of the pillars of Tesla’s global manufacturing network. Musk’s presence also signaled a thaw in his relationship with Trump after a public feud last year.

That overlap between corporate interest and diplomacy was sharpened by Musk’s push for regulatory progress on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software. In November 2025, Musk told Tesla shareholders that he expected the system to win full approval in China in early 2026, around February or March. He said, “We have partial approval in China, and hopefully we'll have a full approval in China around February or March or so.” China’s industry ministry did not immediately respond at the time.

The stakes for Tesla are high. China is both a critical production base and a fiercely competitive sales market, especially as local electric vehicle makers continue to gain ground. Tesla’s China-made EV sales reportedly rose 36% in April 2026, but a separate report said Tesla’s retail sales in China fell 10% year over year that same month, to 25,956 vehicles. The split underscored a company trying to defend its position even as demand shifts and domestic rivals press harder.

Musk remains one of the best-known American business figures in China, but he is also a polarizing one. Chinese observers have admired Tesla’s scale and Musk’s industrial clout, yet regulators and the public have also criticized the company over customer complaints. SpaceX and Starlink have drawn scrutiny from China’s military establishment as well, adding another layer to a relationship that is commercial, political and strategic at once.

For Trump, the optics were useful: a president meeting Xi with a high-profile roster of executives at his side. For Musk, the trip looked like something more ambiguous, a mix of industrial stakeholder, policy seeker and informal envoy, all while Tesla tries to protect its China business from the very tensions that dominated the summit.