At a formal state dinner in Beijing — with Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping at the head table — Elon Musk kept glancing at his phone while a seemingly endless line of guests queued up for selfies, making exaggerated facial expressions at each one. The scene went viral within minutes.
Video from the May 14 banquet shows Musk seated at a round table in the Great Hall of the People, dressed in a dark suit with a white shirt. Attendees approached him one by one, phones raised. He turned toward each person with smiles mixed with exaggerated reactions, briefly engaging before looking back at his phone or returning to conversation. At one point, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun leaned in for a photo; Musk responded with a lighthearted expression that had onlookers laughing. The footage was shot on a phone under warm event lighting, formal place settings in frame.
The banquet capped a two-day Trump-Xi summit in Beijing. Musk was part of a U.S. business delegation — traveling aboard Air Force One — that included Apple CEO Tim Cook, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and executives from BlackRock, Boeing and Goldman Sachs. Talks centered on trade access, technology cooperation, market openness and broader economic ties between the two superpowers.
Musk has business reasons to show up and be likeable. Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory — which produced roughly over 900,000 vehicles in 2024 — is a cornerstone of the company’s global output, and Beijing’s approval is critical for Tesla to expand its Full Self-Driving technology in China. Securing that regulatory pathway is reportedly a key goal of the trip. Meanwhile, Musk has separately laid out plans to deploy thousands of Optimus robots across Tesla factories, ambitions that also depend on regulatory goodwill in major markets.
Musk’s informal style at the dinner was a contrast to the formal diplomacy on display — but substance still matters more than optics. The CEOs in the delegation are looking for clarity on tariffs, long-term investment conditions and regulatory certainty in China. What happens in those conversations will determine whether the trip is remembered as a turning point or just a photo opportunity. The Musk-and-selfies clip, meanwhile, already has millions of views — and will probably be remixed and reposted long after the summit ends.
