Summary
Taiwan’s government is closely monitoring reports that SpaceX has requested its Taiwanese suppliers to relocate manufacturing to countries like Vietnam and Thailand due to “geopolitical” concerns, specifically potential conflict with China.
Taiwan’s Economic Affairs Minister JW Kuo expressed confidence in Taiwan’s resilient supply chain but acknowledged the situation.
The request has sparked anger in Taiwan, with some accusing Musk of being ungrateful for local suppliers. The incident has also garnered attention in China, with some praising Musk’s foresight regarding China’s unification goals.
So Elon knows Trump will throw Taiwan to the Chinese lions. Noted.
But doesn’t Trump hate China?
Obviously he’s extremely succeptable to bribery/flattery etc so he could easily “art of the deal” Taiwan off to China.
Personally I feel like he’s definitely having a vindictive king renaissance so I’m expecting a lot of inflexible decisions made entirely on impulse - because that’s exactly what the people want.
Don’t know if I see him going to war with China as getting bribed is better than fighting and potentially losing. Plus, fighting implies you don’t have enough power/influence to win without fighting and Trump is all about projecting power.
If he does want war, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an American foreign legion formed out of the 20 million immigrants he wants to deport
This is honestly the most terrying thing I’ve read all day. What have Putin and Trump told Musk that led to this decision?
Yeah so musk knows that trump will roll over and china do whatever
People are saying Trump will cause WWIII. I don’t think so. I think Trump will create Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. No point in having a war with each other if you can just take whatever territory the other two don’t want and the other two won’t interfere.
WWIII was already about to happen, now the spinning plates are being handed to the closest thing we’ve got to the antichrist. Sorry for sounding bothered
But with who? Trump isn’t going to go up against Putin and Putin and Xi are allies, so he won’t go up against Xi either.
Much easier for all of them to turn a blind eye to each other for the foreseeable future with three authoritarians in charge.
So you’re imagining a stable power vacuum as the greatest superpower in history willfully shrinks due to the leadership of a foreign asset?
Respectfully, why?
No, I said what I was imagining:
I think Trump will create Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. No point in having a war with each other if you can just take whatever territory the other two don’t want and the other two won’t interfere.
There is no power vacuum there.
I just don’t see how that translates to the game board as it stands without a world war ensuing. There are enough nuclear powers in the world that someone is popping off before we get there.
Not interfering with each other would mean no war with each other.
Imagine deporting all immigrants and then waging war to bring their countries under your control. It’s just insane enough that I could see MAGA doing it.
I mean, once all the work that immigrants do now stops getting done, someone is gonna have to do it. And slaves are cheaper than Americans who might demand a livable wage.
Don’t worry, Americans right now don’t have a livable wage
Why look elsewhere when we have perfectly healthy children that could fill in some of the gaps?
So china is praising musk for running from taiwan because of the horribleness that it might become part of china?
It’s a dick move, but I can kinda understand why SpaceX would make it. There has been a push to “de-risk” supply chains, after the disruptions caused by Covid, Russia’s invasion of Ukranie, and other world events. This type of de-risking was partly responsible for the CHIPS and Science Act. The US Government has a strategic incentive to have a stable and resilient supply chain for semiconductors.
For SpaceX, having critical components be only available from fabs in Taiwan is a risk to business. China has been more and more vocal about it’s desire to annex Taiwan. With Trump taking office, one can imagine that the US commitment to protect Taiwan may not be quite as iron clad as it has been in the past. It’s not hard to imagine a future where China launches an invasion of Taiwan and the US does little more than shrug. At that point, any business which is solely reliant on Taiwan for semiconductors is going to see major disruptions.
So ya, it’s a complete dick move. But, I suspect SpaceX will be far from the last company looking to build a supply chain outside Taiwan.
