This week, the world’s attention was on the chemistry between President Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, at a high-stakes summit. But on Chinese social media, the bigger draw was an awkward encounter between two other men: Elon Musk and his rival, Lei Jun.
A brief, stilted interaction between Mr. Musk, who has long been a tech idol in China, and Mr. Lei, one of the country’s most prominent entrepreneurs, went viral as commentators spun a few seconds of footage into a personal drama between two business rivals.
Mr. Musk was in Beijing with a delegation of business leaders who had accompanied Mr. Trump on Air Force One. On Thursday, he joined American officials and Chinese leaders at a banquet at the Great Hall of the People, where he sat alone as a parade of executives took turns dropping into an empty seat beside him to pose for photos.
He was already grimacing and visibly huffing by the time Mr. Lei, the billionaire founder of Xiaomi, one of China’s largest electronics companies, approached him and gestured for a selfie.
Mr. Musk pulled a few faces, flashed a look of indifference, then hammed it up for the camera before turning to his phone and pretending to be busy.
The clip, only a few seconds long, went viral almost immediately. Mr. Musk even reposted it on X, the social media platform he owns, which is banned in China, where the government tightly controls the media. Some viewers chastised Mr. Lei for pestering Mr. Musk. Others claimed he had “lost face” by looking obsequious, while some came to his defense.
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