What I don’t understand is why Musk is building a factory in china.
That whole factory will be seeded with listening devices. Every chinese musk hires will compete with every other chinese Musk hires to steal a piece of the Tesla factory IP.
It won’t be two years before an exact exact replica of the TESLA plant is built in China. It will be owned and operated by the Chinese. Musk will get no redress.
China is the largest EV market in the world. And China already manufactures a lot of electric cars on their own.
As far as theft goes, I don’t know. But there are other things that set Tesla apart besides IP. And China can already tear a Tesla apart and steal a lot of ideas.
Perhaps Musk sees it as the positives outweighing the negatives.
China has an issue with air quality (and the Elephant Man had a little puffiness around the eyes), and has a huge market for autos. Tesla either builds them there, or cedes the entire Chinese market to the said knockoffs. I'd be surprised if Tesla manages to eke out the quality level that they strive for in the US plants.