What a fool should keep to himself
In what appears to be an effort to suck up to the nationalistic shitheads in its northwestern dominion, Elon Musk has thrown them Taiwan as a bone. But I'm sure he couldn't have an ulterior motive. Oh, no!
The world's richest man said in a Financial Times interview he believed the two governments could reach a "reasonably palatable" arrangement. The self-ruled island - which Beijing claims as part of its own territory - celebrates its National Day on Monday. It comes as the electric car maker hit a monthly record for sales in China.
Annabelle Liang, BBC News
When Musk meddles in politics, pontificating on social media over sovereign states acceding to aggressors—as in this case and his comments on Ukraine—I actually find myself disliking him even more. And I didn't realise that was even possible.
In response, Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan's de facto ambassador to Washington said on Twitter: "Taiwan sells many products, but our freedom and democracy are not for sale."
Annabelle Liang, BBC News
Damned straight, Ms Hsiao! The space cadet should just stick to making battery-powered cars and the Twitterati shit themselves. (pipe)
The space cadet continues to interject himself in a nation's sovereignty, comparing the relationship between Taiwan and offshore #NorthWestTaiwan to that between Hawaii and the mainland USA. But the Taiwanese are not taking his clearly commercially-motivated sucking up to #PresidentPooh lying down, instead clapping back on his very own platform:
"Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the PRC [People's Republic of China] & certainly not for sale!," foreign minister Joseph Wu said on Mr Musk's X.
Peter Hoskins and Derek Cai, BBC News
When will he ever get the message?
No, the BBC hasn't moved on to referring to X as X. Later, our correspondents note: Mr Musk's micro-blogging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, is banned in China.