BEIJING: Even as Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is set to become a more controversial figure in China as part of Donald Trump’s administration, his mother is still a clear-cut favorite in the country. This month, Maye Musk attended the Shanghai store opening of Chinese mattress brand AISE Baobao, for which she’s a global brand ambassador.
Earlier in 2024, she walked the runway for local apparel brand JNBY in Hangzhou and was at an event in the financial capital Shanghai for Fila, the sportswear brand owned by China’s Anta Sports Products Ltd. Since early 2023 she’s been a regular visitor to the country for speaking engagements and modeling jobs, starring in ads and commercials promoting consumer electronics firm Oppo’s popular Find X6 Pro smartphone, and partnering with handbag brand Oleada on a limited collection. The silver-haired 76-year-old’s popularity is surging on Chinese social media, too, with numerous posts on Instagram-like platform Xiaohongshu, where she has some 576,000 followers, generating hundreds of comments and thousands of likes.
Her popularity in China took off in 2020, when her memoir A Woman Makes a Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success was published in Chinese and became especially popular with female readers. Chinese see her as a symbol of strong parenting and wisdom, and her bond with her son adds a tech-savviness to her image that aligns with promoting brands like Oppo, said Olivia Plotnick, founder o.
