China offers Elon Musk permanent residency

Tesla boss Elon Musk has been offered a “green card”, China said yesterday, a privilege enjoyed by an elite group of foreigners, including several Nobel laureates and a former NBA star. Musk was in China for the ground-breaking of Tesla’s first overseas factory, which will allow it to sell vehicles directly in the world’s largest market for electric vehicles.

The high-profile entrepreneur met with Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday in Beijing, where they discussed Tesla’s China ambitions, said the State Council -- the country’s cabinet. “I hope to build Tesla’s Shanghai factory into a global example,” Musk told Li, according to a readout. “I really love China, I’m willing to visit here more often.”

Li replied: “If this is what you truly have in mind, we can give you a ‘Chinese green card’.” Tesla declined to comment on the offer. The number of foreigners with Chinese permanent residency crossed 10,000 in 2016, according to state-run China Daily.

Members of this club, according to the paper, include Dutch scientist Bernard Feringa, who won the 2016 Nobel Prize in chemistry, former NBA all-star Stephon Marbury, and Nobel-winning economist Robert Mundell. Getting a Chinese “green card” has been described as “one of the most difficult tasks in the world”.