When Maye Musk, mother of billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, made her second trip to China in less than five months in August, she turned on the charm.
“I’m doing Chinamaxxing,” she told state broadcaster CCTV, referring to the rising social media trend where Westerners embrace elements of the country’s lifestyles, cultural traditions and consumer products.
In a series of social media posts, the 78-year-old model and dietitian praised Shanghai’s night views and dining scene, making sure to include photos of Tesla’s popular Model Y SUVs spotted on the city’s streets.
Elon Musk echoed her remarks while responding to rumors that Tesla is considering selling or splitting off its Chinese operations, which he has strongly denied. “China is awesome,” he wrote on X. “I strongly encourage people to visit.”
The mother-son duo’s apparent overtures to Beijing come as the US technology titan finds itself squeezed between competition from Chinese electric vehicle upstarts and fragile Sino-US relations. The outreach also underscores how important China has been for Tesla since it started selling its EVs there.
In contrast to Chinese automakers’ faster-than-ever cycle of model launches—almost one per day by some estimates—Tesla is sticking to a minimal two-model line-up in the country’s hypercompetitive EV market.
“Two years ago, [Tesla] should have come out with the legendary Model 2,” said Daniel Kollar, who leads the China automotive practice at UK consultancy Intralink, referring to a more affordable model that Tesla pulled the plug on in late 2024.
“It missed its chance to come to the mid-market,” he said, adding that now Tesla must constantly “look over their shoulder” at what rivals like Xiaomi are doing.
For years, Beijing has delayed granting Tesla approval to introduce the latest version of its Full Self-Driving software in China, due to data security concerns. This has further blunted the US carmaker’s competitive edge against homegrown brands rapidly closing the technological gap.
In late August, Tesla strenuously denied online speculation that it was considering abandoning FSD in China, saying it reported the posts to the police.
Early this month, Tesla said its Cybercab robotaxis would be displayed for the first time in Beijing, Shanghai, and some other Chinese cities in mid-September, albeit with no plans for sales or commercial operations.
Even as the Musks and the company have continued to cultivate China, Intralink’s Kollar said Tesla was “at a disadvantage right now in a lot of respects.”
“It is stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to balance these relationships and the geopolitical situation,” he said.
In the first seven months of 2026, the US automaker sold 266,204 cars in the world’s largest EV market, down 12.4% from a year earlier, according to data from Shanghai-based consultancy Automobility. The pace of decline exceeded an overall 11.8% drop in China’s sales of battery-powered vehicles and plug-in hybrid cars in the same period.
In the first seven months of the year, Tesla’s average market share stabilized at around 4.7%, comparable to the same period last year but down from about 8.7% in 2023.
In its latest move to boost Chinese sales, Tesla on Monday announced cash rebates of RMB 5,000 for Model 3 buyers and RMB 10,000 for Model Y buyers who place orders by September 30.
Despite pressure on sales and market share, Tesla exported a record number of vehicles from its Shanghai Gigafactory in the January-July period. A vast network of suppliers and manufacturing efficiency that took years to establish remain powerful tools for the EV maker, giving it room to lower prices.
Earlier this year, the carmaker slashed the starting price of its China-built Model 3 sedan by as much as 50% in Canada, partly thanks to a tariff loophole, while marking it down by 8.5% in Hong Kong.
Analysts highlighted China’s shifting role in Tesla’s global operations from a key single market to a regional manufacturing hub. “There’s no doubt that China is one of the most competitive countries in the world when it comes to manufacturing capabilities,” said Helen Liu, an advanced manufacturing expert with Bain in Shanghai.
“Do I treat China as a self-defense market where products are made and sold locally?” Liu asked. “Or do I view China as a global manufacturing center, a supply hub and even a research and innovation base? That’s certainly a question every multinational is thinking about.”
Tesla’s deep roots in China, where it opened the Gigafactory in 2019 and a Megafactory for battery packs last year, have extended into its robotics project.
Analysts estimate the majority of key hardware components for Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot are sourced from Chinese partners. Brian Lee, an analyst with brokerage CLSA, said that among the top five US humanoid robot developers, Tesla is the only one that “still has almost 100% dependency” on China’s hardware supply chain.
“Tesla is targeting [around] USD 30,000 unit price for its first batch of humanoid robots,” he added, saying this is only achievable with supply from Chinese suppliers, “because their prices are at least 30% to 40% cheaper than suppliers outside of China.”
Tesla has expanded relationships, forged in the early days of its Shanghai plant, with Chinese automotive parts makers Sanhua and Tuopu, into procurement contracts for actuators, the “muscle-like” components that control humanoid robots’ movements, according to CLSA research. The company also sources reducers, the “joints” in robots, from another Chinese component supplier, Leaderdrive.
Geopolitical pitfalls lurk in the humanoid field, too, however.
Musk said publicly last year that Optimus production had been affected by China’s rare earth export restrictions. China mines about 70% of the world’s rare earths and refines 90% of them, giving Beijing a potent weapon in its tech war with the US.
Tesla was working with Beijing to secure an export license, Musk said, noting China wanted assurances that the magnets would not be used for military purposes.
Tesla did not respond to a Nikkei Asia inquiry about the status of its rare earth procurement.
If the company is unable to secure Chinese rare earths, it would have to look to alternative sources such as US supplier MP Materials and Australia’s Lynas, said Seth Goldstein, senior equity analyst at Morningstar. He said there are enough raw materials outside China for one million humanoid robots, but refining capacity would be an issue.
“That said, we think it will be a few years before Tesla needs the rare earths for one million humanoids,” Goldstein added, “so the company has time to work through procurement.”
Ahead of a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping planned for later this month, US President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled an import ban on new foreign-made robots, citing cybersecurity and national security risks. This was widely perceived as being targeted at China, which accounted for two-thirds of global humanoid robot shipments last year, and where the government has made the nascent industry a major priority.
CLSA’s Lee warned that US policymakers could soon expand restrictions beyond complete robotic systems to critical components and upstream technologies. “Considering this regulatory change, there is a very high chance that Tesla will also look for suppliers outside of China,” he said.
SpaceX, Musk’s rocket and satellite venture, and a major aerospace and defense contractor for the US government, has already embarked on an aggressive campaign to exclude Chinese nationals and components from its operations and supply chains to safeguard technologies critical to US national security, Nikkei Asia reported at the end of July.
Talk on Wall Street that Musk is looking to combine his automaker with the aerospace company—a union that would give both the Chinese and US governments pause—has fueled speculation over Tesla’s potential divestment of its Chinese business. The billionaire has insisted that the prospect of a Tesla breakup with China has never come up and is “absurdly fake news.”
China would be loath to see Tesla distance itself. The automaker remains a poster child for Chinese economic openness.
“There’s a symbiotic relationship between China and Tesla,” said Tu Le, managing director of consultancy Sino Auto Insights. “I don’t think we should understate how important [it is for] China to look like they’re embracing foreign brands in their market.”
He added that while foreign legacy marques are struggling in China, “Tesla is the lone resilient Western brand in the automotive space that seems to be OK for now.”
Maye Musk, in her interview with state media, stressed that “Elon speaks from his heart and he loves China, so he let people know.” She also made a point of saying that the Shanghai Gigafactory offers a positive work environment.
But it is a delicate balancing act that the world’s richest man now faces: maintaining Tesla’s hard-won presence and ties in China without tripping over geopolitical fault lines.
“He got a tough job to figure that out,” said Intralink’s Kollar, “just like everybody else does.”
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.73 = USD 1 based on estimates as of September 15, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.