The military would not buy any more Tesla vehicles following a suggestion from the automaker’s CEO, Elon Musk, that Taiwan become a Chinese special administrative zone, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Wednesday.
Chiu told a legislative session that the military, which owns seven Tesla Model 3s, would not make any more purchases from the automaker.
The statement came after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Mark Ho (何志偉) asked Chiu about the military’s plan to use Teslas in light of Musk’s remark in an interview with the Financial Times last week.
Photo: REUTERS
Chiu said the military owns seven Teslas in addition to 12 electric vehicles from local brand Luxgen.
“We will not buy any more [Teslas],” Ho said, adding that Musk’s remarks made him lose faith in the US company.
Deputy Chief of Staff Logistics Major General Hsu Chin-teng (許金騰) said the military’s Teslas are equipped with eight cameras each, but the devices had been disabled for security reasons.
Musk told the newspaper that he thinks a conflict over Taiwan was “inevitable” and that the global economy could take a 30 percent hit from such a conflict.
He said major companies would be affected, including Apple, which would be “in very deep trouble.”
He said a solution could be to make Taiwan a special administrative zone of China.
The arrangement should be “reasonably palatable” and “more lenient than Hong Kong,” he said.
The DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) criticized Musk for the remarks, saying that the motivation might be business interest in China.
DPP Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) urged Taiwanese and citizens of other democratic countries to boycott Tesla products if Musk does not change his stance on Taiwan.
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