Taiwan is “not for sale”, the island nation’s foreign minister said while sternly rebuking Elon Musk for calling Taiwan an integral part of China. Billionaire owner of aerospace company SpaceX, the social media platform X and Electric Vehicle Company Tesla waded into the prickly issue of relations between Taipei and Beijing in All-In Summit in Los Angeles by controversially calling Taiwan integral part of China. “Their (Beijing’s) policy has been to reunite Taiwan with China. From their standpoint, maybe it is analogous to Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because … the U.S. Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification effort by force,” he said.

Foreign Minister of Taiwan Joseph Wu responded promptly through a post on X late Wednesday. He shared his hope that Musk will ask China to “open @X to its people”. X, along with other major Western social media Facebook is blocked in China. “Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off @Starlink to thwart Ukraine’s counterstrike against Russia,” Wu added, referring apparently to Musk’s refusal of a Ukrainian request to activate Starlink satellite network in Sevastopol last year to support an attack on Russia’s fleet there. “Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the PRC & certainly not for sale!” Wu stated, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.

Taiwan is a democracy contrary to China and its elected government vehemently rejects China’s sovereignty claims. Taiwan government maintains that only Taiwanese people can decide their future. Musk, whose EV company Tesla has a big factory in Shanghai, has not riled Taiwan for the first time. Last October, he controversially suggested that tensions between Taiwan and China can ease off if some control of Taiwan is handed over to Beijing, drawing a reprimand from Taiwan akin to present reprimand.

Joseph Wu has not minced words while criticizing Musk and said, “We don’t know if Musk’s free will is for sale but Taiwan is not for sale, that’s for sure.” He stated that Musk’s comments don’t deserve to be taken seriously as they are made keeping commercial interests in mind. He said that because of commercial interests Musk blindly flatters China. In May Musk had angered Taiwanese people by stating that Taiwan will be integrated in China inevitably.