Can Tom Zhu replicate Tesla's China success abroad?
Illustration by Luis Grañena
The most cited detail about Tom Zhu, the Tesla executive who runs the company’s China operations, is that he is extremely hard working — so much so that he slept at the company’s Shanghai Gigafactory during the Covid-19 lockdown to ensure that cars were still coming off the production line.
Zhu himself often references this; describing his team in China, he said, “We leave our families aside, and work day and night.” Nearly every person interviewed for this article also brought it up, including former employees who admire his in-the-trenches approach.
Zhu stands by his desk inside the open plan office in Tesla's Shanghai gigafactory. Credit: 解放日报
“If we were running on a battlefield,” says Leon Wu, a former Tesla China employee, “he would be fighting alongside the soldiers instead of sitting behind the front lines.”
Zhu’s boss, Elon Musk appreciates the work ethic as well. In China, he recently said, “There are a lot of super talented, ha
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
With its new outbound investment rule, the U.S. is hoping to stop American capital from facilitating China's technological rise. But will the restrictions undermine the global competitiveness of American industry in the process?
The Trump administration's U.S. trade representative explains why he thinks the U.S. got the raw end of economic ties with China, what he thinks of the Biden administration's approach and why the U.S. shouldn't do...
The Global Intelligence Platform used by The Wire China