- Elon Musk tweeted a parody video of an AI fashion show featuring himself, Bill Gates, and other celebrities.
- And Xi Jinping wore a robe featuring a cartoon bear that looks a lot like Winnie-the-Pooh.
- Although President Xi Jinping only appears for two seconds, the video is a risky one given Tesla’s business in China.
Elon Musk on Monday tweeted an AI-generated video of world celebrities strutting down the aisle at a fashion show.
Perhaps the billionaire saw this as entertainment rather than a political statement, since an AI version of him once appeared onstage in latex underwear.
The two seconds of the video will carry even more weight in China, Musk’s Tesla’s largest market outside the United States and home to the Shanghai Gigafactory.
In the video, Chinese leader Xi Jinping appears wearing a robe that is red and features a cartoon-style design of a yellow bear.
It’s a striking reference to Winnie the Pooh, the lovable, honey-loving resident of the Hundred Acre Wood, whom President Xi Jinping has reportedly hated for more than a decade.
The supreme leader became the subject of memes comparing him to Winnie the Pooh in 2013 when he was photographed walking next to then-President Barack Obama, who was said to resemble Tigger.
The reference has been marked as rude on China’s controlled internet for years, mainly because the bear became a popular way to ridicule President Xi Jinping or air grievances without naming him.
The actual Winnie the Pooh character is not openly banned in China — he appears on two rides at Shanghai Disney Resort and still appears in social media posts about toys and kids playing with him.
But no one should underestimate how strictly China considers Winnie the Pooh a “red line” and how severely it will punish any mention of Winnie the Pooh.
In 2018, China refused to release the film “Christopher Robin” and blocked HBO after it aired an episode in which John Oliver mocked President Xi Jinping’s sensitivity to bears.
Winnie the Pooh continues to be an insult used by opponents of Xi Jinping’s government: in 2023, for example, people in Taiwan rallied around a photo of a Formosan black bear punching a plump bear.
Why China is important to Tesla
Indeed, it’s unclear whether Chinese authorities will bother to comment on just two seconds of a fun video posted by an American billionaire on overseas social media.
Meanwhile, China is trying to attract international companies to help revive its economy, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
But Winnie the Pooh remains a frequent topic of conversation on X among Chinese dissidents and critics, and posts about Winnie the Pooh pose a risk for CEOs operating in China, where Musk met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in April.
The billionaire is said to have inked a deal to deploy self-driving software in China, where other electric vehicle makers are rapidly emerging to rival Tesla.
Meanwhile, China is expected to account for 22% of Tesla’s total revenue and 42% of its revenue outside the U.S. in 2023, according to its annual filing with the SEC. The EV maker’s Shanghai factory is also operating under a 50-year lease with the local government, on the condition that it pays more than $300 million in taxes per year.
Still, Musk, who has been vocal on free speech issues, has a penchant for public risk-taking, such as when he berated X’s advertisers and accused them of trying to intimidate him while speaking at a conference.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside normal business hours.
