Social media buzzes with a touching story about Elon Musk and a seven-year-old Chinese kid. In addition to receiving a response, the young girl’s initiative to contact Musk personally on X about a bug with Tesla’s vehicles also garnered a lot of appreciation and delight online.
On July 1, a user going by the handle “DriveGreenLiveGreen” uploaded a video to X with the caption, “Molly decided to report an important bug to Mr. Musk,” tagging the tech billionaire in it. This marked the beginning of the story. In the video, a seven-year-old Beijing girl named Molly brought attention to a problem she found with Tesla’s touch-screen drawing tool.
In the video, Molly said, “Hello, Mr Musk, I have a question for your car. When I draw a picture, sometimes it will disappear like this.” She demonstrated the glitch by drawing on the screen, showing how new strokes caused previous ones to vanish. She then asked Musk directly, “Do you see it? Can you fix it? Thank you.”
Musk answered the same day with a simple “Sure.”
Molly’s mother, Yao, told Tide News how her daughter found the glitch. As she drew on the side of the road, she said, “I want to show Mr. Musk how it disappears.” According to Yao, she was pleased when I informed her yesterday that Musk had responded.
Yao further mentioned that Molly’s fluency in English was influenced by what she learned at a bilingual kindergarten in Beijing starting at three. “I simply wanted to improve her communication skills. I didn’t expect it to be reposted by other viewers and go viral on X or for Musk to reply,” she added. Reflecting on the experience, Yao said, “She taught me a lesson too. Some things seem very far away, but unexpected results can happen if you dare to try and express yourself. It was a big inspiration for me.”
The video quickly went viral, garnering over 1.1 million views on X and earning Molly much praise. One online observer commented, “Molly is so confident, brave and impressive for speaking her mind.” Another said, “Who can resist this little cute Molly?” while a third added, “Ha ha, Musk must wish he had such a cute daughter.”
Amid the light-hearted comments, one user humorously noted, “If Musk had replied in Chinese, it would have been epic.”
This isn’t the first time Musk has interacted with Chinese netizens. In December 2021, a video of a Chinese man resembling Musk, dubbed Ma Yilong or “Elon Musk’s Chinese doppelganger,” went viral. The man stood beside a Tesla car, speaking fluent Chinese, and Musk humorously responded on X, “Maybe I’m partly Chinese.”