SHANGHAI: Tesla Inc. it would never provide the U.S. government with data collected by its vehicles in China or other countries, Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, said at a high-level conference in China.
Musk’s assurance that Chinese customer data is fully protected followed the Chinese government’s decision to restrict the use of Tesla cars by military personnel or employees of key state-owned enterprises, the newspaper reported Friday. Beijing had acted with concern that sensitive data such as images taken by car cameras in the US could be sent, according to people familiar with the matter.
Musk, who spoke Saturday via a video link to the government-backed China Development Forum in Beijing, said no U.S. or Chinese company would risk gathering sensitive or private data and then to share them with your local government.
“Whether Chinese or American, the negative effects if a trading company engaged in spying, the negative effects for that company would be extremely bad,” Musk said. If Tesla used its cars to spy on any country, he said, it would shut down everywhere, which he called “a strong incentive for us to be very confidential.”
Concerns about commercial espionage have overflowed, Musk said, citing the case of the video platform TikTok, owned by Chinese technology company Bytedance Ltd., which last year faced a northern ban. American before being recovered.