Why tech billionaires like Jensen Huang and Elon Musk enjoy rock star treatment in China

Not long ago, a humble fruit stall in Shanghai saw its sales skyrocket when Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, dropped by for some food.Meanwhile, a once-obscure village in southern China has become a tourist hotspot, drawing over 10,000 visitors daily, simply for being the hometown of Liang Wenfeng, the founder of the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek.During Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s 44-hour visit to China in 2023, the buzz surrounding his meals and itinerary on mainland social media was also impossible to ignore, racking up over 170 million views.According to China Entrepreneur magazine, customers even flocked to a restaurant to try the Musk meal set.Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, to the right of the man in a baseball cap, was spotted at a grocery market in Shanghai in January. Photo: RedNoteIn China, these tech giants have transcended their roles as entrepreneurs and are treated much like rock stars and even cultural icons.Liu Taishi, a researcher at the Centre for Sociodigital Futures, University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, told the Post: “Admiration for tech leaders can be seen as a form of affective politics, but it is not the same as political worship. It often comes from a natural attraction to their personality.”