Tesla is slashing car prices following a disappointing first-quarter sales report.
JOHN THYS / Getty
Tesla cut car prices in the US, China, and Europe after sales fell.
The company also reduced its software price by a third in the US.
The company's challenges include disappointing delivery numbers, layoffs, and Cybertruck recalls.
Tesla is trying to win back customers with cheaper cars and software.
The electric vehicle maker cut prices in key markets, including the US, China, and Europe, over the weekend, as it faces falling sales and intensifying competition.
The company also slashed the price of its driver-assistance software, Full Self Driving, by one-third, to $8,000 in the US.
The changes come just before the EV manufacturer is set to report first-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Profit margins have fallen dramatically when Tesla has dropped prices in the past.
Tesla lowered prices for most of its US cars, cutting the costs for the Model Y, X, and S by $2,000, Reuters reported.
In the US, the cheapest Model Yand the Model X — both SUVs — are being offered at their lowest prices. The best-selling Model Y now starts at $42,990, per Tesla's website.
The company didn't change the price for the new Cybertruck or the Model 3 sedan.
"Tesla prices must change frequently in order to match production with demand," CEO Elon Musk wrote on X on Sunday.
He's also facing a big vote in June on his pay. Musk's $56 billion pay package was voided by a Delaware judge in January and shareholders will be asked to re-vote on the compensation at the annual meeting, the company said in a statement.
Tesla's stock is down over 40% year-to-date. Investors are concerned about slow sales amid high-interest rates and intensifying competition from EV makers in China.
Elon Musk wanted Tesla to reduce its workforce by one-fifth, Bloomberg reported.
Musk wanted the layoffs to match the drop in quarterly vehicle deliveries.
Tesla delivered 386,810 cars in the first quarter of 2024, a 20.1% drop from the last quarter.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk at one point wanted the EV giant to trim its workforce by 20%, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Earlier this month, Tesla said it delivered 386,810 cars in the first quarter of 2024, a 20.1% drop from the previous quarter. The delivery drop was the company's lowest quarterly performance since 2022.
Musk had announced a round of mass layoffs at Tesla last week. In his memo to staff, the billionaire said the company is slashing "more than 10%" of its head count.
"Over the years, we have grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe," Musk wrote. "With this rapid growth, there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas."
Tesla's growing troubles have raised questions about Musk's ability to run multiple businesses simultaneously. Besides leading Tesla, Musk also has his hands full with other ventures like SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, X, and xAI.
But, Musk has maintained that the layoffs were necessary to keep Tesla "lean innovative, and hungry for the next growth phase cycle," per his memo to staff last week.
"There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done," he wrote.
Representatives for Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.
The Dalí Museum in Florida recently unveiled a copy of Dalí's "Lobster Telephone" sculpture that allows visitors to call an AI version of the famous artist.
The robo-Dalí can answer questions about his paintings and prints when people speak into the receiver, according to a YouTube video from the museum.
"For years, people have attempted to understand my work, trying to find meaning in this real, to make sense of the dreams of a historic genius," the AI Dalí says in the video. "But how can anyone possibly know what is inside the burning mind of Salvador Dalí? No, they simply cannot. They are mere mortal human beings. But now, I can tell you."
AI Dalí explains that he came into being using a large language model and a recreation of his voice — though he also clarifies that this is far beyond his understanding.
Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the ad agency behind the crustacean-themed phone, used information about Dalí sourced from OpenAI's GPT-4 and voice samples from archival interviews to put together a convincing-sounding Dalí dupe,the company shared with Business Insider.
In the video demo, actors asked about Dalí's art ("Why are the clocks melting?") or his quirky, upturned mustache. Martin Pagh Ludvigsen at Goodby Silverstein & Partners told Business Insider that since the museum unveiled the phone on April 11, Dalí has been fielding between 400-500 questions a day.
What Ludvigsen found from analyzing Dalí's answers is that real visitors will ask the artist just about anything — even love advice.
"Any question about love will go back to his love for his wife, Gala," Ludvigsen said.
Business Insider tested the bot by asking it questions about Dalí's artwork. The bot speaks with grandiose, flowery language, often injecting references to surrealism, dreams, life, and death — subjects the real Dalí explored on the canvas.
Dalí also revealed that he is not a frequent reader of this publication.
"Business Insider, you say? I sip from the cup of imagination, not from the trough of market fluctuations. When I seek to understand the world, it is the surreal, not the stock exchange, that whispers its secrets," Dalí said.
Martin Pagh Ludvigsen/Goodby Silverstein & Partners
There are some limitations to its accuracy. Because of its guardrails, it tends to be more upbeat than the real Dalí may have been in certain situations, Ludvigsen said.
There's also the issue of AI hallucination — where models spit out answers that have no basis in reality. Ludvigsen pointed out, however, that hallucinations can work in their favor, considering the real Dalí's mind often worked outside reality.
AI has become a popular tool for businesses and fans to recreate the likeness of well-loved celebrities, alive or dead. Some celebrities are enthusiastically on board. Still, it raises ethical questions about those who cannot consent.
Recently, South By Southwest attendees got to speak to an AI chatbot of famed actor Marilyn Monroe. Although Monroe's estate signed off on using her likeness, we'll never know if Monroe herself would have wanted to be used for an AI demonstration at a festival in Texas.
And on Friday, artist Drake used the AI voice of celebrated rapper Tupac Shakur in a diss track aimed at Kendrick Lamar.
Ludvigsen told BI that he and his team had thought through this ethical quandary — and continue to consider it as other clients express interest in replicating the experience with different artists.
"If we were to recreate another artist this way, I would want to make sure that we could point to evidence in their writings or their art or even maybe their foundations — whatever they have left behind — that this is something this artist would want us to do," Ludvigsen said.
As for whether Dalí would approve of his likeness being used, AI Dalí told BI that becoming digitized is a "splendid metamorphosis."
And Dalí scholar Elliott King told NPR he believes the late artist may enjoy knowing his voice will live on through his lobster phone.
"He was so interested in scientific advancements," King told the publication. "I think that he would have been really tickled by people talking into this lobster phone."
Using LinkedIn's collaborative articles can be a great way to stand out on the platform.
Rob Dobi via Getty Images
Job seekers can optimize their LinkedIn usage by treating their profile like a résumé.
LinkedIn can be seen as a library of other professional résumés that candidates can use to compare themselves to.
Maintaining a dynamic profile and sharing content increases chances of being spotted by recruiters.
For most job-seekers and recruiters alike, LinkedIn plays a huge role in the recruiting process.
Employees have plenty of reasons to take a peek at their profiles, even for those not actively looking for a new role. Nearly a quarter of US workers surveyed by Gallup last year worried their jobs will be replaced by technology. With layoffshitting across industries and companies taking huge bets on AI, survival efforts like upskilling, networking, and revamping online profiles are more important than ever.
Some career experts liken LinkedIn to a living, breathing CV, while others say they spend longer on a candidate's LinkedIn profile than on their résumé.
LinkedIn's job posts are the obvious first stop for those looking for a new role. But there are other ways you can leverage the platform in your next career move.
One strategy is to follow the companies you'd like to work for to stay in the loop about job openings, company news, and industry trends, Nick Shah told Business Insider. Shah is the founder of Peterson Technology Partners, a 26-year-oldtech staffing agency based in Park Ridge, Illinois. A spokesperson said the company placed over 300 people in the past year and screens about 1,000 candidates monthly.
Shah shared three other ways candidates can optimize LinkedIn to stand out to hiring managers.
1. Treat your LinkedIn profile like a résumé
People are used to enhancing their résumés to stand out in employers' keyword-searching software. Add those phrases to your LinkedIn profile too, because recruiters look for candidates by typing in industry-related keywords, Shah said.
"Candidates should include relevant keywords in the 'About' section and their last job experience position details," he said. "No place is considered off-limits for keywords. If you can get a recruiter's attention with the right skills mentioned in your LinkedIn profile and back it up with technical expertise, you are doing it right."
He said that one of his recruiters found a security architect who, in his title, described his background in cloud security and artificial intelligence, and specified his certifications. In his skills section, he listed his focus within cybersecurity and his Microsoft Office and cloud proficiencies.
Shah said these keywords helped the recruiter spot that the candidate was a right fit for the client — and he'll likely receive an offer soon.
2. Use it for healthy comparisons
LinkedIn is a library of professional profiles.
"To make your profile stand out and get noticed by recruiters, it can be helpful to compare it to profiles of people working at companies you admire," Shah said.
By comparing their LinkedIn page to yours, you can find gaps in your own profile information and skills you might consider developing, Shah said. Keep a close eye on your work experiences section, which should include clear and succinct examples of your work, and result metrics.
3. Make yourself visible
Regularly share content and engage with posts from your network. This engagement increases your chances of being spotted by recruiters and hiring managers, Shah said.
Candidates can post articles on the platform or contribute to the newer "collaborative article" tool, which allows users to share under a LinkedIn-created prompt.
The Tesla Model 3 is currently the EV maker's cheapest vehicle within its lineup.
John Keeble/Getty Images
Elon Musk teased details about a cheaper Tesla model just a few months ago.
Bloomberg reported Tesla has shifted to robotaxis, which Musk said will be revealed in August.
The change in priority comes as Tesla reports slow sales and decline in revenue.
If EV consumers were looking for a cheaper Tesla in the immediate future, that hope may have to be put on hold for now.
Bloomberg reported that the company's priorities have changed, shifting away from a mass-market $25,000 Tesla to robotaxis, which Elon Musk said will be unveiled in August.
The pivot comes afterTesla's disappointing earnings report, which revealed a 20% decline in vehicle deliveries for the first quarter. Bloomberg reported that the company is also expected to report a 40% decline in operating profit and its first revenue decline in four years on Tuesday.
In response, Musk is reducing head count at his company by 10% and betting on robotaxis to give Tesla a much-needed boost.
Musk announced on X at the beginning of April that Tesla plans to reveal its first robotaxi in August, which will likely require some significant advancements to the automaker's FSD software.
Currently, Tesla's so-called Full Self-Driving technology can allow a vehicle to change lanes automatically, self-park, and enter a highway, among other features. However, it still requires full-time supervision of a driver. The automaker is also facing several lawsuits related to the software.
Tesla hasn't revealed many official details on what the robotaxi will look like. Still, Musk has offered various statements on his vision of the company's autonomous cab, including removing human-oriented controls such as mirrors, pedals, and steering wheels.He also said that Tesla owners could turn their vehicles into a robotaxi, earning them up to $30,000 annually.
But the Tesla CEO has made some grand promises about robotaxis before. In 2019, Musk said the company would have a million autonomous cabs on the road within the next year, a claim that was met with much skepticism and never materialized. The company hasn't rolled out any autonomous cabs nor received government approval to test such vehicles on public roads.
Sources familiar with the company's plans told Bloomberg that it's all hands on deck for robotaxis.
One source told the outlet the timeline for a prototype rollout and production capacity for robotaxis is getting priority over a cheaper Tesla model.
The pivot is a marked shift in focus for Musk and the company.
In December, Musk was teasing details about a $25,000 Tesla, saying the company was "quite advanced" in its work on the car and that it would be "not like any car production line that anyone's ever seen."
For now, the cheaper Tesla appears to have been put on the back burner. Reuters reported in early April that sources familiar with the company's plans said that the $25,000 model is dead. Musk has denied that report, and sources even disputed the claim to Bloomberg.
Nuggets made from lab-grown chicken meat are displayed during a media presentation in Singapore, the first country to allow the sale of meat created without slaughtering any animals.
NICHOLAS YEO/AFP via Getty Images
The fledgling lab-grown meat industry is being dragged kicking and screaming into the culture wars.
GOP politicians in four states have passed or are considering bans on "cell-cultured" food products.
But industry insiders say their products, while disruptive, aren't meant to be political.
In recent months, Republican politicians have taken aim at lab-grown meat — also called "cell-cultured" or "cultivated" proteins — seeking to criminalize its production and distribution before the companies creating the products can get to market.
And with the industry in its infancy, the GOP lawmakers are trying to strangle it in its crib by manufacturing a philosophical wedge to keep consumers away.
"They blame agriculture for global warming. I know the legislature is doing a bill to try to protect our meat — You need meat, OK? We're gonna have meat in Florida," Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a February press conference announcing an investment in rural broadband access, where he alsovocalized his support of SB1084, a proposed law in Florida to ban cultured meat.
"We're not going to have fake meat; that doesn't work," DeSantis continued. "So we're gonna make sure to do it right. But there's a whole ideological agenda that's coming after a lot of important parts of our society."
Despite DeSantis' insistence that cultured meats are a cultural issue, the manufacturers certainly don't see it that way.
"There's nothing about cultivated meat that is a conservative or a liberal thing," said Josh Tetrick, CEO of GOOD Meat — a cultivated meat company with the largest market share of the global industry so far."It has nothing to do with either party."
The world's first lab-grown beef burger, created by a team led by Mark Post, a medical physiologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
David Parry/Reuters
SB1084 passed both houses of the state legislature and was submitted for review by the governor on March 6. A spokesperson for DeSantis told Business Insider the governor "will review the legislation in its final form once it is delivered to our office" and pointed to his February remarks about the statewide ban on cell-cultured proteins.
Meanwhile, across the country, part of a bill introduced by Arizona state Rep. David Marshall reads, "Cattle are one of the five foundational pillars that have driven Arizona's economy since territorial days," adding that "this legislation is necessary to protect Arizona's sovereign interests, history, economy, and food heritage."
Other red-state politicians are also responding to the threat to their red meat, including Alabama State Sen. Jack Williams and Tennessee State Rep. Bud Hulsey, who have supported or proposed legislation to ban cultivated meat in their states.
Representatives for Marshall, Williams, and Hulsey did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
An FDA official told Business Insider that manufacturers must ensure foods meet all applicable federal requirements from the FDA and USDA before entering the US market. So far, only a handful of lab-grown meats have met these requirements.
"The FDA continues to support innovation in food technologies, resulting in more choices for consumers in the marketplace while also prioritizing the safety of food produced through both new and traditional methods," the official said, adding the agency "did not have any questions about the safety of the cell-cultivated food produced using the process evaluated by FDA."
They're 'using cultivated meat as a cudgel — and it's just silly'
While the fledgling business of cultured meats has the potential to reduce the need to slaughter animals for protein, diminish the environmental impact of factory farming, and disrupt the livestock industry as we know it, insiders working on bringing the lab-grown products to market say the innovations are anything but political.
Theirrelative market share to meat industry giants like Cargill and Foster Farms and production capacity also remains far too small to represent any kind of threat to traditional livestock farming, industry insiders told Business Insider.
But that hasn't stopped lawmakers from targeting the industry, much to the dismay of those trying to bring their products to market.
"The past century of US prosperity has been driven by free market policies, and it's disappointing to see legislators move against what has driven the US to be the largest economy on the planet," George Peppou, CEO of Vow, which sells its cultivated meat product in Singapore, told BI. "Let the market decide with their own wallets, not legislators."
A dish made with Good Meat's cultivated chicken is displayed at the Eat Just office in Alameda, California. The US Department of Agriculture authorized two California-based companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat, to sell chicken grown from cells in a lab.
Justin Sullivan via Getty Images
"There's no question there's an attempt to create this right-left division using cultivated meat as a cudgel — and it's just silly," said Tetrick, whose GOOD Meat has sold less than 5,000 pounds of its cultivated chicken protein since it received approval to sell in Singapore in 2020.
"We find it pretty hypocritical because, in a lot of these states, there's a beating of the chest about free market capitalism and the American way," he said. "But in the middle of beating their chests, they're saying, 'except when it comes to something that would potentially harm an industry that I rely on for donations.'"
According to OpenSecrets, Greener Pastures, a poultry farming company, donated $100,000 to DeSantis in 2022, just one major donation out of the $1,700,118 the governor received from various agricultural businesses that year.
Alabama Sen. Williams, whose bill, which passed in February, makes it a Class C felony to manufacture, sell, or distribute cultivated meat in his state, accepted $11,000 worth of agribusiness donations in 2022, including $2,500 from the poultry and egg industry, the political donation watchdog found.
Representatives for DeSantis and Williams did not say whether their campaign backers from the farming industry influenced their perspectives on banning lab-grown meats.
A nugget made from lab-grown chicken meat is seen during a media presentation in Singapore, the first country to allow the sale of meat created without slaughtering any animals.
Photo by NICHOLAS YEO/AFP via Getty Images
GOOD Meat received USDA approval to sell its product in the United States in June 2023 and is one of just two companies creating cultured meat to receive the green light thus far. Representatives for the other company, Upside Foods, declined to comment for this article.
Tetrick told BIthe bans are just a stumbling block for companies like his as they grow. "And we think they'll get struck down anyway," he said.
While it can be frustrating to navigate individual states attempting to negate a federal agency's approval, some in the industry think the attempts to ban their products are a sign they're doing something right.
"If you put energy into banning something that doesn't even exist on the market, this is amazing — it means that it's going to be huge," Roman Lauš, founder and CEO of Mewery, a Czech food tech startup working on developing cultured pork that does not yet have approval in the US, told BI.
"But I would say it's a political decision, and politicians should basically not interfere with the food safety business; they should let the customers decide what they want to eat,"he added. "If the USDA and FDA approve these kinds of foods, I would say this is the highest authority in the whole country, and their word should be followed."
A former Army service member stationed at Fort Bragg was convicted of running a romance scam.
Pfc. Joshua Cowden / 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment /DVIDS
A federal judge sentenced a former Army service member to prison for running a romance scam.
Romance scams cost Americans $1.3 billion in 2022.
The service member impersonated military officials and others to defraud his victims, police say.
A US soldier will spend more than three years in federal prison for a romance scam in which police say he impersonated military officials.
A federal judge sentenced Sanda G. Frimpong, 33, on Friday and ordered him to pay his victims hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution, according to the Department of Justice. Before his arrest, Frimpong was an active-duty Army service member stationed at Fort Bragg, the department said.
Romance scams are one of the biggest in the United States, costing American victims $1.3 billion in 2022, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Targets of these scams are often older people who are bilked for their life savings, retirement funds, and inheritances.
One of the largest perpetrators of the scams — the Nigeria-based crime group "Yahoo Boys" — is now using AI to create deepfakes for the scams, making them even harder to spot, according to Wired. One quick way to spot a deepfake is to do a reverse image search and check the true source of an image.
Kate Kleinert, a 69-year-old widow, previously told BI that she lost $39,000 to a romance scam. Kleinart said she had lost most of her savings, her late husband's life insurance, pension, and income from Social Security by the time she realized she was being scammed.
One of Frimpong's victims had recently divorced after a 25-year marriage, according to court documents. Using the alias "Tom Tanner," Frimpong tricked the victim into sending him at least $100,000 in cashier's checks, which he wired to other coconspirators, court documents say.
Authorities accused Frimpong of impersonating "romantic love interests, diplomats, customs personnel, military personnel, and other fictitious personas" to gain people's trust. Frimpong then promised romance, earning their confidence with the intention of "fraudulently inducing the victims to provide money or property," the Justice Department said.
"Romance scammers exploit our most vulnerable citizens, even our seniors and military veterans, sometimes leaving them financially and emotionally devastated," US Attorney Michael Easley said. "The fact that an Army service member was involved in romance scams while serving as a soldier is appalling."
An attorney for Frimpong did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.
Amanda Taylor, a pro-choice politician in Missouri thought she was being targeted by anti-abortion extremists.
Courtesy of Amanda Taylor
A pro-choice politician in Missouri thought anti-abortion extremists were targeting her.
She was mailed an eerie anonymous drawing that she believed was "related to abortion."
It turned out it was marketing for "The First Omen" a film about the birth of the antichrist.
Amanda Taylor gets a lot of mail. The Missouri-based mom has spent the last few years establishing herself as a film blogger and recently turned her hand to politics, meaning her mailbox is full of promotional materials from film studios and leaflets concerning local issues.
But when Taylor, who is running for the state's House of Representatives as a Democratic Party candidate picked up her mail in late March and opened an envelope to find nothing but what appeared to be a children's drawing, her mind went into overdrive.
Why? Well, the crudely drawn picture featured four women with their faces scribbled over, standing around the floating body of a little girl who looks out with a disturbing gaze. Taylor's name was also scrawled in spidery, slightly eerie handwriting on the envelope.
To anyone else, it would be creepy. To someone running for public office on a pro-choice ticket in a state that outlaws abortion with limited exceptions, it felt very sinister, threatening even.
One of the drawings Amanda Taylor received in the mail with no identifying details from the sender.
Courtesy of Amanda Taylor
"Right away, I was thinking, 'Ah, this has something to do with abortion," Taylor told Business Insider. "The day before I had received something from a pro-life organization so I was like, 'Okay, I'm starting to receive all the propaganda stuff.'"
Not knowing what to make of the mysterious letter — it came with no return address and featured an out-of-state stamp — Taylor sent it to her campaign advisor, who quickly called the police, fearing the letter was from one of Taylor's constituents, unhappy with her stance on reproductive rights.
"She called me, and she was like, 'Put that into a plastic bag, wash your hands, the police are on the way,'" Taylor said, explaining that her campaign advisor was concerned the paper could have been laced with something poisonous.
Taylor said it wasn't until a few weeks after she had set herself up a PO to redirect mail away from the family residence, that she discovered the identity of the letter sender.
It was Marshall Weinbaum, a senior publicist from Walt Disney Studio's PR department.
The letter, it turned out, was just an elaborate publicity stunt to promote "The First Omen," the latest installment in the long-running horror franchise. Weinbaum has been credited with thinking up the marketing stunt.
The creepy kids' drawings, it turns out, appear in the new movie, which fills in the back story of 1976's original "Omen" movie, introducing the world to Damien, a terrifying take on the antichrist.
After sending the first anonymous letter, Weinbaum had the team working on the horror flick send prospective critics another equally disturbing image, this time featuring five little girls looking on as a sixth girl floating in the sky.
The follow-up letter the Missouri-based democrat received. This one came with details about the film it was promoting, "The First Omen."
Courtesy of Amanda Taylor
However, this one, Taylor said, was sent alongside all the standard information you normally would find on a press release, including the film's name, synopsis, and the hashtags the studio would like cinemagoers to use while talking about the film on social media.
It all clicked into place and Taylor realized that she and her family were safe.
Now, looking back on it, she can almost see the funny side.
"That was the best promotion I've ever seen," she continued. "But it's also the one that's affected me the most."
Ukraine's Zelenskyy said Americans are not 'funding war' but 'protecting democracy' with their aid.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainians are fighting so that the US and others don't have to.
Once passed by the Senate and signed by Biden, ammo and weapons could reach Ukraine in days.
Americans may be fatigued by the war in Ukraine, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reminded them on Sunday that at least they don't have to fight in it.
The Ukrainian president's comments came Sunday morning on "Meet the Press" on NBC News, just one day after the House of Representatives approved a long-awaited aid package for Ukraine.
Zelenskyy spoke with NBC's Kristen Welker. Hesaid the United States is "protecting democracy" in Europe.
"The Americans are not funding the war in Ukraine. They are foremost protecting freedom and democracy all over Europe. And Ukraine is fighting," he said. "[The] US Army now does not have to fight protecting NATO countries. Ukrainians are doing that."
The $60 billion aid package passed the House despite heavy GOP dissent. It now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to pass. President Joe Biden has signaled his intent to sign it.
"It's only the ammo that the world is providing. And I think it's a good decision," Zelenskyy said. "While Ukraine stands, there's no direct war between US or NATO and Russian aggression. So Ukraine is still fighting, and Ukraine is protecting all the others."
Should Ukraine lose the war against Russia, analysts worry Russia might use that momentum to target NATO countries.
Chinese military vehicles carrying DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles during a military parade in 2015.
Andy Wong – Pool /Getty Images
China is likely analyzing Iran's failed attack on Israel to prepare for a possible invasion of Taiwan.
Experts believe China will focus on how Israel and its allies thwarted the attack, a report said.
Tensions between China and Taiwan have heightened in recent years.
China will analyze the failed Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel in order to better prepare for an invasion of Taiwan, experts believe.
Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles in a direct attack on Israel last week, but Israel and its allies were able to shoot down most of the munitions.
Rupert Hammond-Chambers, the president of the US-Taiwan Business Council, told The Telegraph that China would likely look at the incident to work out how it could get past the technology and the alliance that foiled the attack.
"They will be picking apart what transpired, not just in the way in which the Iranians attacked but also how we responded – the Israelis and the coalition that supported them," he said.
"The kill rate for the drones and the missiles was extremely high, almost perfect. The walk-away for the PLA [People's Liberation Army] will be that the Americans and their allies have the technology to significantly blunt an attack," he added.
Chinese President Xi Jingping.
Reuters
Much like Israel, Taipei expects to be able to rely on US support in the event of an attack from China, which considers Taiwan a part of its territory.
A vote in the US House of Representatives on Saturday, which saw almost $61 billion in aid for Ukraine approved by the US House, also confirmed that around $8 billion would go toward security in the Indo-Pacific region, including to Taiwan.
However, Hammond-Chambers did not believe the pro-Taiwan alliance was operating as smoothly as in the case of Israel.
"The Jordanians, the Brits, the States and the Israelis all worked together to negate the Iranian attack. To what extent do we have that in place in North Asia?" Hammond-Chambers said, per The Telegraph.
"It's coming but I've not seen that yet – that common operating platform that allows for seamless interoperability," he added.
It follows a warning from former commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence Mike Studeman, in which he said Beijing appeared to be on the "march to war."
In an article for War on the Rocks, Studeman wrote: "The war machine of the People's Liberation Army continues to modernize at a sprint in every area."
"In 2020, Xi accelerated significant military milestones from 2035 to 2027 because he wanted China's military to modernize faster and give him Taiwan options earlier," he added.
Tensions have risen between China and Taiwan since the island's Democratic Progressive Party, which favors independence from China, won a third consecutive term in Taiwan's 2024 presidential elections.
In August 2022, following then-speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, tensions reached near-boiling point as China began military exercises over the island, including "live-fire drills."
In April 2023, China again launched military drills around the island after then-president Tsai Ing-wen visited the US.
At the time, China described the drills as a "stern warning against the collusion between separatist forces."