{"id":584154,"date":"2026-05-14T19:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/584154\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T19:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:49:12","slug":"elon-musk-takes-selfie-with-rival-chinese-ev-billionaire-lei-jun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/584154\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk Takes Selfie With Rival Chinese EV Billionaire Lei Jun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Topline<\/p>\n<p>Lei Jun, the Chinese billionaire and CEO of smartphone and electric vehicle company Xiaomi, leaned in for a selfie at a state dinner with his seemingly annoyed American manufacturing rival Elon Musk, who is one of several <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/saradorn\/2026\/05\/13\/6-billionaires-worth-a-combined-1-trillion-join-trump-on-his-china-trip\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"color-link\" title=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/saradorn\/2026\/05\/13\/6-billionaires-worth-a-combined-1-trillion-join-trump-on-his-china-trip\/\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/saradorn\/2026\/05\/13\/6-billionaires-worth-a-combined-1-trillion-join-trump-on-his-china-trip\/\" aria-label=\"American billionaires\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">American billionaires<\/a> accompanying President Donald Trump on a state visit.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends a state banquet hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.<\/p>\n<p>Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/clashreport\/status\/2054890781962322197?s=46&amp;t=XMT4bHReB9TWcV5q_r0pFw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"color-link\" title=\"https:\/\/x.com\/clashreport\/status\/2054890781962322197?s=46&amp;t=XMT4bHReB9TWcV5q_r0pFw\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/x.com\/clashreport\/status\/2054890781962322197?s=46&amp;t=XMT4bHReB9TWcV5q_r0pFw\" aria-label=\"video\">video<\/a> circulating on social media, Jun appears to approach Musk and kneel down for a photo during a banquet at China\u2019s Great Hall of the People, where the Tesla CEO made what appeared to be annoyed expressions for the camera.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLei Jun and Elon Musk Posing for a Photo\u201d was also trending in the top three terms on Chinese social media site Weibo on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Since the trip began, Musk has been interacting with Chinese-speaking followers posting photos and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/xiejackie\/status\/2054768597566972290?s=46&amp;t=XMT4bHReB9TWcV5q_r0pFw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"color-link\" title=\"https:\/\/x.com\/xiejackie\/status\/2054768597566972290?s=46&amp;t=XMT4bHReB9TWcV5q_r0pFw\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/x.com\/xiejackie\/status\/2054768597566972290?s=46&amp;t=XMT4bHReB9TWcV5q_r0pFw\" aria-label=\"videos\">videos<\/a> of him on X, the app he purchased in 2022 for $44 billion, and when a user posted a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/whyyoutouzhele\/status\/2054884428082786350\/photo\/2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"color-link\" title=\"https:\/\/x.com\/whyyoutouzhele\/status\/2054884428082786350\/photo\/2\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/x.com\/whyyoutouzhele\/status\/2054884428082786350\/photo\/2\" aria-label=\"video\">video<\/a> of him walking with one of his children, Musk <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/2054895057086591344\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"color-link\" title=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/2054895057086591344\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/2054895057086591344\" aria-label=\"replied\">replied<\/a> in Chinese: \u201cMy son is learning Mandarin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Forbes Valuation<\/p>\n<p>We estimate Lei Jun\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/lei-jun\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"color-link\" title=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/lei-jun\/\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/lei-jun\/\" aria-label=\"net worth\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">net worth<\/a> at $25.4 billion as of Thursday morning, making him the 102nd wealthiest person in the world. Lei\u2019s company Xiaomi moved into the electric vehicle market with an initial investment in 2021, and is now one of the Chinese electric vehicle brands competing with Tesla\u2019s Model Y for the most best selling model in the country, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/business\/china-evs\/article\/3353525\/geely-xiaomi-lead-pack-battery-evs-top-china-sales-rising-oil-costs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"color-link\" title=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/business\/china-evs\/article\/3353525\/geely-xiaomi-lead-pack-battery-evs-top-china-sales-rising-oil-costs\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/business\/china-evs\/article\/3353525\/geely-xiaomi-lead-pack-battery-evs-top-china-sales-rising-oil-costs\" aria-label=\"South China Morning Post\">South China Morning Post<\/a> reported. We estimate Elon Musk\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/elon-musk\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"color-link\" title=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/elon-musk\/\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/elon-musk\/\" aria-label=\"net worth\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">net worth<\/a> at $828.5 billion as of Thursday morning, making him the wealthiest person in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Further Reading<a class=\"embed-base color-body color-body-border link-embed embed-1 link-embed--long-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/siladityaray\/2026\/05\/14\/beijing-summit-trump-invites-xi-to-the-white-house-in-september-live-updates\/?streamIndex=0\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Beijing Summit: Trump Invites Xi To The White House In September (Live Updates)\" data-ga-track=\"forbesEmbedly:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/siladityaray\/2026\/05\/14\/beijing-summit-trump-invites-xi-to-the-white-house-in-september-live-updates\/?streamIndex=0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ForbesBeijing Summit: Trump Invites Xi To The White House In September (Live Updates)By Siladitya Ray<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline Lei Jun, the Chinese billionaire and CEO of smartphone and electric vehicle company Xiaomi, leaned in for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22097,84,891,141,995,59,16610,1216,56,54,55,16608],"class_list":["post-584154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-billionaires","tag-business","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-elon-musk","tag-gb","tag-lei-jun","tag-tesla","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-xiaomi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}