Tesla CEO Elon Musk has started following the X account of President Yoon Suk Yeol ahead of the AI Seoul Summit. This comes about three weeks after Tesla recently announced that it is preparing to introduce Full Self-Driving (FSD) in South Korea.
On the 20th, President Yoon posted in English on his X account, “To utilize the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we will co-host the AI Seoul Summit jointly with the British government from the 21st to the 22nd. The AI Seoul Summit will help promote our priorities of innovation, safety, and inclusion while establishing a vision for AI governance.”
Musk, expressing excitement about the AI Seoul Summit, started following President Yoon’s X account. As of the 21st, Musk, who has 184.5 million followers, is following 600 X accounts, including President Yoon’s.
The meetings between President Yoon and Musk took place twice, once in November 2022 and once in April 2023. In a video call with Musk in November 2022, President Yoon requested investment in Korea, to which Musk responded, “Korea is one of our top investment priorities.”
However, when Tesla showed no movement on building a Gigafactory in Korea, President Yoon reiterated the need for Tesla’s investment in Korea during their meeting in Washington DC in April 2023. Despite Musk emphasizing that “Korea is one of the top candidate countries for a Gigafactory,” Tesla has not taken a position on building a Gigafactory in Korea for over a year.
Musk’s response to President Yoon’s X account came three weeks after Tesla announced they were preparing to introduce FSD in Korea. At the time, Tesla informed an official of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport about the preparations for FSD but did not provide a specific timeline for its introduction.
Industry insiders are speculating on the possibility of Musk attending the Global AI Forum, but some say it should be watched. The Global AI Forum, a side event of the AI Seoul Summit, will be held at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology on the 22nd. While Jason Kwon, Chief Strategy Officer of OpenAI, and Lee Sang Ho, Chief AI Officer of Kakao, are scheduled to attend, Musk’s name was not on the list of attendees.
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