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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Alex Hern Technology editor

Twitter and Tesla’s interests at odds in Elon Musk’s quiet China visit

Elon Musk, wearing a suit and tie, leaves a hotel with an entourage
Elon Musk leaving a hotel in Beijing during the visit. He resumed tweeting on Thursday with a post about SpaceX. Photograph: Tingshu Wang/Reuters

Followers of Elon Musk didn’t know what to expect from his trip to China. Would he speak about Tesla, a company with a large market and manufacturing footprint there? Or SpaceX, with its symbiotic relationship with the American state? Or even Twitter, the social network he bought because “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”?

The one thing no one expected: silence.

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