A collage of Ma Jianping and Elon Musk. Can you tell who is who? Photo: South China Morning Post.
Has Elon Musk really abandoned his multi-billion-dollar empire in space research and technology to work as a cook in a restaurant in northwest China? Recently, a video went viral on the Chinese social media platform Douyin.
The video, which went viral on July 26, shows ‘Elon Musk’ serving food in a restaurant; it garnered over 1.3 million likes in a single day.
However, it did not take long for netizens to realize that the person in the video was not actually Elon Musk. The man in the video is Ma Jianping, 48. He is the co-owner and head chef of a restaurant named ‘Yilan’ in Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province, China.
Ma’s hometown is actually in
Gansu Province. He worked there as an electrician for many years before entering the catering business and opening his own restaurant.
Chinese media outlet Hongxing News reported that customers visiting Ma’s restaurant noticed a striking resemblance between him and Elon Musk. Coincidentally, the pronunciations of ‘Ma’ and ‘Musk’ are also quite similar.
After Ma’s video went viral, his restaurant saw an overwhelming influx of curious people.
People are traveling from far and wide—not just to eat, but to take photos with Ma or shake his hand. Sales at the restaurant have also doubled.
Naturally shy, Ma says he feels quite ‘embarrassed’ by this unexpected fame, as people are recording live videos with him and he is receiving various business proposals.
Yet, this celebrity status hasn’t changed Ma in the slightest. He still feels most comfortable focusing on the restaurant from 9 AM until late at night, just as he did before. He hasn’t raised food prices by even a penny to capitalize on his fame. Netizens, however, show no signs of stopping their playful antics involving Musk’s mother. Using artificial intelligence (AI), people are creating various humorous trolls and memes featuring her. She is depicted in everything from a sharp suit to—in a viral, imagined image—barbecuing alongside Nvidia chief Jensen Huang and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
One person jokingly commented, “Musk spent billions on the Starlink project; perhaps he is recouping it all by selling kebabs in China.”
