Elon Musk stunned South Korea and Tesla watchers alike when he popped up final week on a video name with President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Yoon’s workplace launched particulars of the chat, revealing Musk had stated he thought of the nation a best choice for funding.

Shares of battery-related corporations like Samsung SDI and Posco jumped, despite the fact that Musk didn’t clearly say he really needs to construct a manufacturing facility within the nation.

Yoon, battling poor public opinion polls, was eager to make the pitch for why the Tesla CEO may need to think about South Korea, citing the nation’s high-quality engineers and auto elements makers, and secure provide of electrical energy. Analysts additionally had been upbeat.

“It’s attainable, as a result of Tesla is already utilizing a whole lot of components made by Korean corporations,” Koh Tae-bong, a Seoul-based analyst at HI Funding & Securities, stated.

“There isn’t a nation like South Korea that has an virtually full provide chain for EVs. Now we have a big chipmaker in Samsung Electronics, three battery-cell makers, cathode and anode supplies makers, digicam module makers and different smaller key element makers.”

Koh isn’t improper. Normal Motors has its largest technical heart exterior the U.S. in South Korea and speaks extremely of its engineers there.

The nation has confirmed resilient all through COVID, skirting large-scale lockdowns which were frequent in China.

Musk most likely would additionally like South Korea’s Overseas Funding Promotion Act, which supplies money incentives and tax advantages.

The South Korean public loves Tesla, too, as I witnessed throughout a visit to Jeju island in Might to attend the Worldwide Electrical Car Expo.

Retail buyers have  purchased into Tesla inventory in a giant method, with people in South Korea holding round $9 billion of shares, in response to information from the Korea Securities Depository.

South Korea additionally suits proper into Musk’s “ hardcore” working tradition. It’s one of many hardest-working nations, logging extra hours than the U.S. and some other Asian nation within the OECD.

Simply 4.4 % of some 21 million folks within the nation are working from dwelling, up from solely 2 % in 2020, the primary 12 months of the pandemic.

Flipside

On the flipside, there are causes Musk may wrestle in South Korea. There’s the plain geopolitical threat stemming from North Korea’s nuclear actions.

Robust labor legal guidelines can also manifest in frequent strikes by extremely unionized workforces. There’s one happening now, because it occurs, by the truckers union that has clogged up ports and industrial complexes and hampered provide of key exports.

Musk’s opposition to unions is well-documented. He’s a vocal critic of the United Auto Employees, and the Nationwide Relations Labor Board dominated final 12 months that Tesla had repeatedly violated U.S. labor legislation.

“South Korea is named having a few of the strongest labor unions on this planet,” stated Choi Woongchul, a professor at Kookmin College in Seoul. “I might put the prospect of a brand new Tesla gigafactory in Korea at zero.”

Musk may need to learn up on Kaher Kazem, the previous head of GM in South Korea, who now faces a possible jail time period on expenses of illegally hiring contract staff. Prosecutors are searching for a 1.5-year jail sentence for Kazem, who at one stage was banned from leaving the nation.

HI Funding’s Koh had a thought of how a Tesla plant in South Korea may work: “Make it one hundred pc automated.” Musk had higher get busy on his humanoid robots.