A Chinese man has sparked a huge online controversy over his striking resemblance to Elon Musk, as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX was quickly notified by netizens.
A video of an unknown man standing next to a luxury car – albeit not a Tesla – first appeared on Chinese social media, but almost immediately spread elsewhere on the web.
Maybe I’m partly Chinese!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2021
Users continued to share the clip and screenshots of it, describing its star as the Chinese Elon Musk, or “Yi Long Musk”.
Earlier this week, the world’s richest man announced on Twitter that he would pay a record $11 billion in taxes in 2021, and someone posted a photo of his Chinese “twin” in the comments.
It did not go unnoticed by Musk, who responded to the photo by saying, “Maybe I’m partly Chinese.”
The 50-year-old businessman was born in Pretoria, South Africa, to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He currently holds US, Canadian and South African citizenship.
Musk has been saying some nice things about China in recent months, including describing the country as a “global leader in digitization” and praising the local auto industry. And he promised in late September: “Tesla will continue to expand our investment and R&D efforts in China.”