Tesla is criticised for opening a showroom in Xinjiang despite human rights abuses. 
Human Rights Watch says Elon Musk and Tesla must consider human rights in the Chinese region or risk being complicit. 


Council on American-Islamic Relations says no US company should be doing business in Xinjiang, China, after news emerged Elon Musk’s Tesla company was opening a showroom there. 


Tesla has opened a new showroom in the capital of Xinjiang, a region at the heart of years-long campaign by Chinese authorities of repression and assimilation against the Uyghur people.


Tesla announced the opening in Urumqi with a Weibo post on 31 December saying: “On the last day of 2021, we meet in Xinjiang. In 2022 let us together launch Xinjiang on its electric journey!”


The post was accompanied by photos of the opening festivities including people holding placards which read “Tesla [heart] Xinjiang”.


The US has enacted a range of sanctions and regulatory and other measures against China over its continuing human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including restrictions on US business dealings with local operators and suppliers.


President Joe Biden last month signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and the US government intends to conduct a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics.


Uyghur rights groups criticised the opening of the showroom, reportedly Tesla’s 211th in China. The Council on American-Islamic Relations urged its immediate closure, and the cessation of what it alleged “amounts to economic support for genocide”.


“No American corporation should be doing business in a region that is the focal point of a campaign of genocide targeting a religious and ethnic minority,” said the council’s director of national communications, Ibrahim Hooper.