Elon Musk Backs China Special Zone For Taiwan That’d Be “More Lenient Than Hong Kong” — Report

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, suggested in an interview published on Friday that Taiwan become a special administrative zone of China, according to a report in The Guardian.

Musk told the Financial Times: “My recommendation … would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy. And it’s possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong,” the Guardian reported.

Tesla, though headquartered in the U.S., made about half of its cars last year in mainland China, the world’s largest auto market.

Chinese Communist Party-led Beijing claims sovereignty over democratic, self-governed Taiwan; the two sides have been divided since the end of a civil war in China in 1949.

Musk was born in South Africa and is currently a U.S. citizen. He has a fortune worth $219 billion on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List today.

The auto entrepreneur also waded into global politics recently by suggesting that the Ukraine cede the Crimea to Russia, drawing criticism from Ukraine.

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