Tech tycoon Elon Musk has doubled down on his bid to be the world's peacemaker — unveiling his plan to resolve the Taiwan crisis.
In an interview for the British Financial Times, the Tesla and SpaceX founder told journalist Roula Khalaf that he thought conflict over the breakaway Chinese province backed by the US was inevitable.
Musk warned that could disrupt the supply of goods made in China to the West. He said the Tesla factory in Shanghai would keep running — albeit only be able to sell cars inside China — but "Apple would be in very deep trouble, that’s for sure," and the global economy as a whole would contract by 30 per cent.
In the vein of his recent suggestions on how to end the conflict in Ukraine, the world's richest man came out with a peace plan to settle differences between Beijing and Taipei.
"My recommendation... would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable," Musk said, while conceding that it "probably won’t make everyone happy."
"And it’s possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong," he added.
South African-born US citizen Musk, who has drifted from voting for the Democratic Party to leaning towards the Republicans, was also critical of US President Joe Biden, saying he was too old to run for a second term in 2022.
"You don’t want to be too far from the average age of the population because it’s going to be very difficult to stay in touch," Musk said. "Maybe one generation away from the average age is OK, but two generations? At the point where you’ve got great-grandchildren, I don’t know, how in touch with the people are you? Is it even possible to be?"
US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, who at 82 is Biden's senior by three years, sparked the new crisis between China and Taiwan in early August when she flew to the island on a US Air Force jet to declare support for its claims to independence.