There are several theories as to where the COVID-19 virus originated. Some say it was from someone consuming an infected bat, while others believe that the virus came from a lab. Elon Musk is among those who believe the latter, and it might just affect his car company, Tesla.
Musk Supporting the 'Lab Leak' Theory
It's no surprise that Elon Musk landed himself in hot water again because of his tweets, and it's probably not going to stop any time soon. His recent assertion caught the attention of a state-run paper in China.
The mentioned paper, The Global Times, warned Elon Musk about his support of the theory. As mentioned in The Verge, reporter Eunice Yoon said that the post asked Musk is "breaking the pot of China" which can mean "biting the hand that feeds him."
This can become a huge issue for the car manufacturing company since China is Tesla's second-largest market, and it is also the location of one of the company's biggest factories. The company also gets its materials for making EVs in China.
With that being said, it's important for Musk to keep a strong relationship with the country, yet he is responding to tweets that imply with "low confidence" how the virus that caused the pandemic came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab.
The tweet Musk replied to claims that Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the research at the Wuhan Lab allegedly responsible for the outbreak, and that he lied about it to Congress. It also stated that the FBI and the Department of Energy concluded that the virus originated at the lab.
He did it via a pass-through organization (EcoHealth)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 26, 2023
China Responds to the Theory
Obviously, China was not happy about the reports brought by the Energy Department about the virus originating from the Wuhan lab, even though it was a conclusion of low confidence. The country accused the US of making the coronavirus outbreak about politics again.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said that COVID tracing is a scientific issue and that it should not be politicized. She added that the US should stop defaming China by spreading the lab leak theory.
The issue seems to have been magnified by the already existing tension between the two countries. There was an instance where China also spread conspiracy theories suggesting that the coronavirus may be from the US biological weapons programs.
According to The New York Times, the suspicions of the virus coming from labs in China are because of the highly infectious disease held in two research facilities in the country, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan CDC lab.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported back in 2021 that it was extremely unlikely for the virus to come from a Chinese laboratory, and China has used this report to support its case when dismissing the lab leak theory.
Aside from the claims that the virus had leaked from a lab, China was also criticized for not being able to contain the virus, resulting in a pandemic with many casualties. China retorted by saying that the virus could be the result of research at a U.S. military lab.
