Is Elon Musk Serving Two Masters?

“Given his investment in China and also given his relations with Chinese leaders, people do hope that he can play a constructive role in the second Trump administration,” Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, told the Journal in November.

But some of Musk’s recent machinations at the federal level seem primed to aid the foreign superpower beyond just the policy level. Foreign policy experts have argued that the decimation of USAID and its goodwill foreign policy strategy, for instance, will weaken the U.S.’s global positioning and provide China the leverage to take center on the world stage, with some unexpected complications to boot.

“As China expands its diplomatic and economic influence around the world, American support for systems of oversight, accountability, and sustainable economic and environmental decisions helps prevent China from entrapping countries in debt and diplomatic subservience and from monopolizing critical minerals or strategic access points, about which the Trump administration is so concerned,” wrote Brookings Institute foreign policy fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown, citing the Panama Canal as an example.