Does China’s science budget boost confirm it is listening to everything Elon Musk says?

China has just unveiled its draft fiscal budget for 2026 and its blueprint for the next five-year plan. The priorities outlined in these documents overlap heavily with the ambitious projects championed by Elon Musk, including the Starlink constellation, electric vehicles, Neuralink interfaces and artificial intelligence. As Beijing reveals a 10 per cent year-on-year budget increase for the sector, it is positioning frontiers such as future energy, brain-computer interfaces and satellite inter...

By Dannie Peng