Why People In China Are 'Donating' Money To Tesla CEO Elon Musk — The World's Richest Person
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk posted an ancient Chinese poem on Weibo on Monday and this led his millions-strong followers on the social media platform to open up their wallets.
What Happened: Musk posted an 1800-year-old poem, called “The Quatrain of Seven Steps,” composed by Cao Zhi, the brother of the Emperor of Wei Cao Pi without any clear context.
Humankind
煮豆燃豆萁
豆在釜中泣
本是同根生
相煎何太急— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2021
Subsequently, Musk, who has 1.9 million followers on Weibo, began receiving donations from the users of the Chinese social media platform, reported CnEVPost.
The minimum donation on Weibo is RMB 5 ($0.78). Musk has received 2,678 donations from his followers, as per CnEVPost, which means he could have possibly received at least RMB 13,390 ($2,092) in donations.
Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei was among those who made the donations, as per CnEVPost.
See Also: How To Buy Tesla (TSLA) Stock
Why It Matters: Musk is currently placed at the top of Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index with a net worth of $326 billion.
The poem uses the cooking of beans using beanstalks as an analogy to “humankind.” Both beans and beanstalks come from the same root, but the cooking beans cry out in anguish to the beanstalks — why boil us so hot?
Interestingly, the widely-known poem was created under duress by the poet. Cao Zhi’s royal brother suspected him of being a throne usurper and demanded he composes within seven strides to prove his innocence or face the ultimate penalty.
Musk recently offered to sell $6 billion worth of Tesla stock immediately on Twitter if a United Nations official could explain how the amount would help end world hunger. The Tesla CEO, however, demanded that the world body provide open source accounting to show how it intends to spend the funds.
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency noted that Musk’s poem could be a signal towards his Twitter exchange with the UN, reported Reuters.
Some others think the poem could be a reference to rival meme coins Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), reported Bloomberg.
Price Action: On Tuesday, Tesla shares closed nearly 3% lower at $1,171.97 in the regular session and fell 0.94% in the after-hours trading.
Photo: Courtesy of Heisenberg Media via Wikimedia
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