Elon Musk was accompanied by his six-year-old son to the much-anticipated Beijing summit. It was Bring your Child to Work Day at the Great Hall of the People

The boy with X Æ A-Xii for his name with his father Elon Musk. Screen shot: astv/YouTube

It was a sombre, deadly-serious Great Hall of the People (人民大会堂) in Beijing, but who’d guess that Elon Musk would prematurely pay tribute to our Racial Harmony Day that schools here celebrate annually in July. On our shores, the symbolism is pedagogical and collective. It’s about teaching children the value of harmony and the importance of understanding that value. In Beijing, the symbol of a six-year-old with an unpronounceable name, X Æ A-Xii, prancing on hallowed ground was personal and elite‑driven. Papa Musk authored it by placing his son there, the poor child his mascot for billionaire spectacle. The difference could not be more stark. Our kids here are learners; that child there is a prop. What our schools do is to teach inclusivity. Musk, o the other hand, projected optics of warmth in a geopolitical theatre that he and his fellow attendees were ill-equipped and ill-at-ease to play. As they would say in China, putting on a fake show to impress: 装腔作势.

In that brief moment captured by the media of the world, the mini-me Musk wore a cream, long-sleeved polo-shirt over which was a jade-green silk 北甲 (beijia or gilet) with asymmetric front opening, fastened via traditional 盘扣 (pankou) or frog buttons. The ensemble looked like it was bought from the vicinity of the Friendship Archway in Washington D.C. Every male present was in a suit, one kiddo was strikingly not. To complete the Disney-eque, MAGA take on cute, the child was given a conspicuous dragon-theme satchel. The Great Hall became a stage for pre-school puerility. Sure, the kid held on only to a 龙包 (longbao, dragon bag), not the 龙袍 (longpao, dragon robe), but a longpao signifies the mandate of heaven; a longbao signifies a mandate to carry snacks. To be sure, he didn’t ask to carry the bag, he didn’t decide to walk into the Great Hall, and he certainly didn’t understand the geopolitical weight of the setting. As in the past, he did not asked to be brought to the Oval Office. Only now, this was the Great Hall of the People, not the dubious ‘House of the People’, the White House. All of that was constructed and imposed by his father in full, attention-seeking detail. But rather than the 天子 (tianzi), Son of Heaven, he came across as a model of a gift shop.

Sure, the kid held on only to a 龙包 (longbao, dragon bag), not the 龙袍 (longpao, dragon robe), but a longpao signifies the mandate of heaven; a longbao signifies a mandate to carry snacks

Just like the Adidas’s China-only 唐装 (tangzhuang) track jacket, baby Musk’s gilet was selected by his father to pander to the Eastern exotica admired by the Americans, particularly the supporters of Mr Musk and the Trump administration. This is the very reason American women, un-advantaged by regular use/abuse of Ozempic, go to Shanghai Tang to buy a 旗袍 (qipao, cheongsam) when visiting Hong Kong. It’s a superficial, flattened version of culture designed for Western consumption rather than deep cultural alignment. It might be worthwhile to note that this was not a tourism summit. This was not about the “Trump Slump”—the policy-driven swan dive in international vistor arrivals in the U.S., which is roughly a 6% drop in 2025, causing America to possibly lose over $12 billion in projected travel revenue and delaying full recovery until 2029 . It was a high‑stakes diplomatic and economic theatre between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, staged in the Great Hall of the People, with more than a dozen of America’s most powerful CEOs-as-lackeys—in attendance. The agenda was trade, AI, semiconductors, aerospace, and finance—not costume displays, certainly not family photo‑ops.

Sure, Donald Trump brought along his boy, too, the ornamentally yours, Eric. But at least the younger Trump was there to see “more ways to grift”, as social media put it. He was working, to put it crudely. His trip coincided with persistent reports that Alt5 Sigma—a firm where Eric Trump sits as a mere placid “observer” on the board—was exploring an AI partnership with a Chinese chipmaker. While Elon Musk used a kiddie costume to bypass the technical rigour of statecraft, Eric Trump night have been leaning into the quiet negotiations of U.S. firms, such as Alt5 Sigma, positioning themselves at the intersection of U.S.–China AI and semiconductor politics. What could have been another Arabella Kushner singing in Mandarin during Donald Trump’s first term to prove that this administration has a history of using children as soft power tokens curdled into an adult with insider access to a firm probing sensitive AI‑chip collaborations. No innocence here — instead, potential conflicts of interest and corruption optics. Convergence, we here the MAGA masses say. Yep, the preferred noun for when the tech bros threw the party, with a child swinging a longbao in attendance. It is hard to top that.