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Elon Musk Receives Ominous Warning From China After Endorsing Lab Leak Theory

(Photo by CARINA JOHANSEN/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)

Dylan Housman Deputy News Editor
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A major arm of Chinese Communist Party state media issued a warning to Elon Musk on Monday after the Tesla and Twitter CEO endorsed the lab leak theory of COVID-19 origin.

Musk replied to a tweet Sunday about Dr. Anthony Fauci, indicating his belief that Fauci had funded the creation of COVID-19 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). That prompted the Global Times, a leading Chinese state-run newspaper, to post on social media pondering whether Musk had bitten the hand that feeds him.

“He did it via a pass-through organization (EcoHealth),” Musk tweeted Sunday, referencing Fauci and his agency’s funding of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that funneled American grant money to the WIV. The tweet he replied to had questioned whether or not Fauci “funded the development of COVID-19” by facilitating gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

Proponents of the lab leak theory of COVID-19 origin generally believe that the pandemic began due to a leak of COVID-19 from the WIV, where dangerous gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses was taking place.

Early Tuesday, CNBC’s Eunice Yoon first reported that the Global Times had posted about Musk on WeChat, a popular Chinese social media service. “Elon Musk, are you breaking the pot of China?” the paper posted.

According to Yoon, “breaking the pot after feeding” is a Chinese idiom akin to “biting the hand that feeds you.” (RELATED: ‘The State Department Has Done Almost Nothing’: Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman Rips Biden Admin On COVID Origins)

China is Tesla’s second biggest market, and the company has a major production facility in Shanghai. Musk, who has grown increasingly outspoken politically in recent years, does not have a track record of vocally criticizing the Chinese government.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.