Taiwan’s military will not buy any more Teslas following a suggestion from the carmaker’s CEO Elon Musk last week that the island become a Chinese special administrative zone, Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said Wednesday.
Chiu told a legislative session that the military, which currently owns seven Tesla Model 3s, would not make any more purchases from the carmaker.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Mark Ho (何志偉) had asked Chiu about the military’s plans to use Teslas after Musk recommended making Taiwan a special administrative zone of China in an interview with the Financial Times published last week.
According to Chiu, the military acquired the Teslas and 12 electric vehicles from local carmaker Luxgen brand e-cars for environmental reasons.
“If that decision has caused some concerns, we will not buy any more [Teslas],” Ho said.
According to Ho, Musk’s remarks regarding Taiwan made him lose faith in Tesla.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief of Staff of Logistics Major General Hsu Chin-teng (許金騰), who fielded questions during the same session, said all the Teslas used by the military had their eight cameras disabled for security reasons.
In last week’s Financial Times interview, Musk said a conflict over Taiwan was “inevitable” and that the global economy could take a 30 percent hit from such a conflict. He also said that other companies would be affected, claiming that Apple would be “in very deep trouble.”
The South African-born entrepreneur then said that a solution could be to make Taiwan a special administrative zone of China, which is “reasonably palatable” and has “an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong.”
Both the ruling DPP and main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) blasted the billionaire for the remarks, saying that the suggestion was made based on considerations of his own financial interests in China and to please Beijing.
One DPP lawmaker Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) urged consumers in Taiwan and other democratic countries to indefinitely boycott Tesla’s products if Musk did not change his narrative on Taiwan, a democratic and sovereign state.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel