Wealthy Chinese investors are calmly receiving tens of millions of dollars in private companies controlled by Elon Musk using an agreement that protects their identity publicly, according to managers of assets and investors involved in transactions.
Since Musk was named a major figure in the efforts of US President Donald Trump to regain the US government, China -based assets managers have promoted the party’s relationship as a glamor to increase capital from wealthy Chinese. Money is flowing into Musk’s non-public enterprises, including XAI, Neurallink and Spacex, the most valuable private company in the world.
Investments are being placed through dark structures known as special -purpose vehicles, which benefit the identity of investors, to avoid the anger of American authorities and companies careful to Chinese capital during a nadir in relations between the two countries.
Assets managers after agreements have told investors that entities were created specifically to avoid detection.
The use of special goals in funding is common and there is nothing illegal about agreements. However, it raises concerns about the potential for unjust impact and conflicts of interest at a time when Musk has an unprecedented involvement in US politics, politics and business.
“How can anyone in Musk’s position have so much connection with China, but still be a good person to reform the American government?” Said Derek scissors, an old associate at the American Institute of Enterprises. The influx of Chinese money in the Musk’s business empire “adds to this picture that he is more interested in his reputation and his brand in China than in American interests.”
The dark nature of the structures makes it difficult to evaluate the full degree of Chinese capital flowing into Musk’s private enterprises. But three Chinese -backed assets managers told The Financial Times that over the past two years, they had sold Chinese investors more than $ 30 million valuable shares in Spacex, Xai and Neuralralk, three private muscles controlled by Musk, whose estimates have increased.
All said, Spacex has raised more than $ 10 billion from investors worldwide since its inception in 2002, according to PitchBook.
The entry of Chinese capital into the Musk’s Business Empire is largely led by profit and has little to do with the transfer of technology or the impact of public policy, according to people involved in transactions.
With a slow domestic economy, wealthy Chinese are looking abroad for investment opportunities.
But the structure means that Chinese investors receive limited information, if there are, about the company’s finances and performance, unlike the details shared with the main investors.
While Musk enjoys a warm relationship with Beijing, it has been difficult for the company to get direct investments from China, financial advisers said. Beijing’s security hawks have criticized Spacex for its links to the US military.
“It is not easy for Chinese entities to invest in a prominent US high -tech company like Spacex,” said Kevin Chen, chief economist of the Financial Horizon, a New York -based financial advisory group. “Chinese money are not welcome in many sectors.”
Representatives for Musk, Spacex, Xai and Neuralralk did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
A recent Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of Chinese investors awarded a webinar to hear a representative from Homer Financial, a Asset Manager in East China, opened an opportunity to invest in Spacex for as much as $ 200,000 per person.
Homer’s official said she expected that Spacex’s estimation of almost threefold at $ 1.1TN within three years, thanks to the “comprehensive” support from the US government and the army that continued to establish procurement orders in the space technology company “In times of concern”.
China’s wealth began funding Musk’s private enterprises in the late 2010s, when the Tesla founder began building a SHANGHAI electric factory in 2019 to benefit from efficient and low cost supply chains.
Early investments were paid. Homer said in a social media post in October that a group of her clients had made a 530 percent return investing in Spacex in June 2018, collecting six years later.
An investor in Homer confirmed the figure, adding that he regretted no more invested. “I knew Musk was a good businessman,” he said. “But I didn’t expect him to be so successful within such a short time.”
In the last two years, Homaer launched three funds to invest in Spacex and was able to meet the objectives of collecting his capital within weeks, said one person with knowledge of the matter.
When Beijing imposed restrictions on private companies, including cancellation of the IPO’s Jack Ma and Jack Ma and the Global Travel Guide Group to delete in the JB-Music Values of Musk continued to increase.
“I have more confidence in Musk than in most beginner Chinese entrepreneurs, who are trying to withstand an increasingly dominated state economy,” said an investor who bought shares in Spacex through Homaer last year.
Some Chinese have paid an award for open stock purchase in Musk’s enterprises. Leo Group, a Chinese company, made titles in 2021 when it announced plans to invest $ 50m in Spacex through the Tomales Bay Capital, a California -based private capital fund. Less than a week later, the US partner Leo revoked the transaction, citing Spacex’s concern with the public discovery of Chinese shares, according to a subsequent legal battle between the two firms.
In response, the Chinese are driven to vehicles with special goals. Pool Property Managers Investor funds in an entity registered in the Kajman Islands, which invests money in US -based funds managed by Western private capital firms, which are already existing investors in Ventures Musk.
The presence of Chinese funds is not visible in public property data.
A person close to Homer said the firm asked her partners in the US if they accepted Chinese money. Typically, the terms also demand that the US partner liquidate investments in extreme scenarios such as a military conflict between the two countries.
“The dangers exist because we are not sure how bad the US-China relationship will become in the coming years,” the person said.
Uncertainty has not stopped wealthy Chinese from receiving deals. While strict Beijing capital controls have limited Musk investors in China for those with foreign bank accounts, some wealth managers have found opportunities to overcome the obstacle.
“China is facing an excess of capital supply and lack of high quality projects,” said a New York investment manager seeking to collect capital from China for such investments. “This is where we fit.”
