DeLauro in Letter to Congressional Leadership: Musk Chaos in Government Funding Process Protects His Chinese Investments
Earlier today, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, sent a letter to congressional leadership raising concerns that Elon Musk may have upended the government funding process to remove a provision that would regulate U.S. investments in China.
“The four corners of the Appropriations Committee and Congressional leadership reached a government funding deal earlier this week that included a key provision that would screen U.S. investments in critical sectors in China,” said DeLauro. “Musk’s investments in China and his ties with the Chinese Community Party have only grown over the last few years with Tesla’s Shanghai plant producing about 50 percent of Tesla’s global automobile output. It is no surprise ‘President’ Musk does not want to see a funding deal containing this provision be signed into law.”
In the letter, DeLauro outlines how an outbound investment provision would have kept cutting edge technologies in the United States and prevent wealthy investors from offshoring production and U.S. intellectual property to China. Musk’s Shanghai plant is Tesla’s largest car manufacturing facility – producing about 50 percent of Tesla’s global automobile output over the last year. Nearly a quarter of Tesla’s global revenue in 2023 drew from sales of Chinese made vehicles from the Shanghai factory. In May of this year, Tesla broke ground on a new $200 million factory to manufacture large batteries critical to its electric vehicle supply chain – down the street from its Shanghai car factory. Notably, proponents of regulating U.S. investment in China have advocated for the inclusion of large battery manufacturing in the list of technologies subject to outbound investment screening.
