Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Elon Musk was featured at an event focusing on space exploration at the Chinese embassy in Washington on Saturday — reports Yahoo Finance.
The news comes just a few months after China submitted a complaint to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs alleging that the country’s Tiangong Space Station had two “close encounters” with SpaceX’s Starlink satellites and had to take avoidance maneuvers to ensure the safety of the astronauts on board.
During Saturday’s event, a short, pre-recorded statement from Musk was played on three large screens before an audience of American schoolchildren, their parents and teachers, embassy staff, and members of the press.
“I look forward to humanity working together to form self-sustaining civilization on Mars and other planets,” said Musk, characterizing this goal as important for the long-term prosperity and survival of humankind.
Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang echoed Musk’s sentiment in his closing remarks, calling for all people to “join hands in protecting our Mother Earth and work towards a shared future and common prosperity for all mankind.”
The embassy event also included two former Nasa astronauts — Don Thomas, who flew to space four times and served as a Program Scientist aboard the International Space Station, and Barbara Morgan, who was Nasa’s first Educator Astronaut.
When China took issue with the trajectories of SpaceX’s satellites, the U.S. rejected the fellow superpower’s claims and issued a statement saying that neither incident referred to by China amounted to an emergency.
Before China’s complaints of close calls with SpaceX’s satellites last year, Musk also spoke virtually at the 2021 China Development Forum, an economic summit in the country for its citizens.
Despite the previous disagreement between China and the American billionaire, Musk’s inclusion in Saturday’s embassy event highlights the continued importance of the relationship the two share.
Musk’s electric vehicle (EV) company, Tesla, is the global leader in an industry that China seeks to dominate.
More than half of the EVs Tesla produced last year (484,130) were manufactured at the company’s Shanghai Gigafactory, which is also the only car assembly facility in mainland China that is fully owned by a foreign investor.
What’s more, Tesla is set to construct a second factory in China to double its production capacity in the country to a whopping 2 million units per year.
