---
title: "Elon Musk's move ignites the market: What exactly is being purchased with the 20 billion China photovoltaic orders?"
type: "News"
locale: "en"
url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/280003769.md"
description: "Tesla plans to invest 20 billion to purchase Chinese photovoltaic equipment, breaking through the barriers of U.S. tariffs and power shortages, paving the way for its domestic \"ground energy empire.\" Musk is voting with real money, heavily endorsing the unshakeable dominant position of the Chinese photovoltaic industry in the new global energy order"
datetime: "2026-03-21T01:20:21.000Z"
locales:
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  - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/280003769.md)
  - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/280003769.md)
---

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# Elon Musk's move ignites the market: What exactly is being purchased with the 20 billion China photovoltaic orders?

On March 20, news from foreign media reported that Tesla is planning to procure solar panels and battery manufacturing equipment worth $2.9 billion (approximately 20 billion RMB) from Chinese suppliers, including Maiwei Technology. This may involve several listed companies, including Maiwei Co., Ltd., Laplace, and Jiejia Weichuang.

Affected by the rumors, the photovoltaic equipment sector experienced a comprehensive surge. As of the market close on March 20, the photovoltaic sector as a whole strengthened, with equipment manufacturers Maiwei Co., Ltd. and Jiejia Weichuang both rising over 9%.

## 01 Musk's "Ground Chess Game"

In February 2026, news of Musk's team secretly visiting several photovoltaic companies in China sparked market discussions, focusing on equipment, silicon wafers, battery components, and cutting-edge technology directions, particularly showing heightened interest in next-generation high-efficiency technologies such as heterojunction (HJT) and perovskite. **This is closely related to Musk's long-term strategic layout in the space photovoltaic field.** In a previous article, we provided a detailed explanation of the reasons for choosing Chinese photovoltaic companies: “What is Musk's team focusing on during their secret visit to photovoltaic companies in China?”

However, it is necessary to clarify a commonly confused issue: **Tesla's procurement this time is mainly aimed at ground production lines, which is different from the directions involved in the secret visit in February.**

From the potential cooperating companies revealed so far—Maiwei Technology, Jiejia Weichuang, and Laplace—all three are **photovoltaic manufacturing equipment companies**, and their product lines mainly focus on battery cell production processes in large-scale mass production scenarios, such as screen printing, diffusion, coating, and complete line delivery, which are used to serve the industrial manufacturing needs of ground photovoltaic power stations or home rooftop scenarios.

Additionally, according to informed sources regarding the equipment's purpose—once the production line is established, the battery panels produced will mainly be for Tesla's own use, with a portion directed to SpaceX for satellite power supply.

It is important to clarify that: **Solar panels installed on satellites for self-powering are not the same as "space photovoltaics."** Space photovoltaics refer to large-scale power generation in space, with electricity transmitted back to Earth, which is a complex energy system; whereas satellites equipped with solar panels are standard power sources for the satellites themselves **.**

**Therefore, the core purpose of this batch of procurement equipment is primarily to serve the ground energy system, not "space orders."**

## 02 Musk's "Energy Empire"

**The photovoltaic orders under Musk's team are mainly divided into SpaceX (S chain) and Tesla (T chain), with planned application scenarios being space and ground respectively.**

SpaceX's photovoltaic needs mainly serve spacecraft, satellites, and space stations in space application scenarios. The space environment imposes extremely stringent requirements on photovoltaic technology, needing to maintain stable output under extreme temperature differences and strong radiation conditions, thus requiring battery conversion efficiency, lightweight design, and durability far exceeding ground standards Currently, **SpaceX is focusing on next-generation high-efficiency technology routes such as heterojunction (HJT) and perovskite in the field of space photovoltaics**, which is still in the stage of technological reserves and preliminary layout.

Tesla's photovoltaic business is centered on ground applications, with major product lines including **Solar Roof, Solar Panel, Powerwall, and Megapack**, covering a full range of distributed photovoltaic and energy storage integrated solutions from homes and businesses to the grid.

Unlike the S chain, the core demand of the T chain is large-scale production capacity and cost control, requiring mature and stable industrial-grade manufacturing equipment support, and it has now entered a substantial phase of capacity expansion.

According to Tesla's official recruitment information, its goal is to achieve a solar manufacturing capacity of 100 gigawatts starting from raw materials in the U.S. by the end of 2028. Behind this goal is Musk's attempt to build a self-controlled solar manufacturing system in the U.S. that spans the entire chain from equipment to products, and the procurement of manufacturing equipment from China is a key step towards this goal.

In the public eye, Tesla is an automobile manufacturer. However, Musk's positioning of the company has long exceeded the boundaries of "car manufacturing." As early as 2016, Elon Musk included "solar energy + energy storage" as one of the core strategies of the company in the "Tesla Master Plan Part Deux," proposing to create "an integrated energy system that is efficient, aesthetically pleasing, and capable of energy storage."

In January 2026, Musk further elaborated on his vision for humanity's energy issues, proposing a "three-step" plan: the first step is to use Tesla's Megapack batteries to store idle electricity from power plants at night to improve the efficiency of the existing grid; the second step is to launch solar AI satellites into space to maximize solar energy utilization by leveraging the 24-hour sunlight advantage in space, which is expected to require 8,000 launches in a year to complete deployment; the third step is to establish satellite factories on the moon to source materials locally to manufacture satellites and send them into orbit, achieving larger-scale solar energy capture—he views this step as a true upgrade of humanity's energy system.

From car manufacturing to energy storage, from ground photovoltaics to space satellites, Musk has a complete energy logic that forms a "self-reinforcing" closed loop.

## 03 In the new energy order, one cannot avoid the "Chinese coordinates"

This $2.9 billion procurement order, viewed from a broader perspective, is merely a footnote to a larger story.

Over the past decade, China has experienced a complete cycle in the fields of photovoltaic manufacturing and power batteries, transitioning from subsidy-driven growth to brutal reshuffling, and then to global dominance.

Around 2010, both industries started with reliance on national subsidies, with a massive influx of capital leading to rapid capacity expansion. This was followed by fierce price wars, with photovoltaic module prices dropping by 90% over ten years and the cost per kilowatt-hour of power batteries falling from thousands of yuan to less than a hundred yuan. A large number of small and medium-sized enterprises exited during the reshuffling, but the surviving companies honed their extreme cost control capabilities and technological iteration speeds. Leading companies such as Tongwei, Longi, and CATL emerged from this brutal competition and ultimately established global dominance S&P Global's Chief Analyst for Clean Energy Technology in Photovoltaics, Hu Dan, pointed out that by 2025, China's newly installed photovoltaic capacity will continue to lead the world, accounting for 57% of the global total. Notably, in 2025, global new photovoltaic installations will surpass coal power for the first time, making photovoltaics the dominant force in new electricity installations worldwide. This historic leap is closely linked to the rapid development and scaling contributions of China's photovoltaic industry.

By the end of 2025, **China's production capacities for silicon materials, silicon wafers, solar cells, and modules will account for 96%, 96.2%, 91.3%, and 80.1% of the global total, respectively.** Of course, these figures are not merely the result of subsidies; rather, they are achievements validated repeatedly by the market after a long elimination process. This advantage has been formed through companies honing their extreme cost control capabilities and the speed of technological iteration, which is also the fundamental reason why Elon Musk continues to choose Chinese suppliers after comparing globally.

From this perspective, it is less a procurement decision and more a public endorsement—he confirmed an indisputable fact with a $2.9 billion order: **the irreplaceability of Chinese photovoltaics in the global new energy industry landscape.**

**Musk's choice, in addition to the irreplaceable advantages of the Chinese photovoltaic industry itself, is also partly due to the structural dilemmas of the domestic energy industry in the United States.**

**On one hand,** the U.S. has implemented a multi-layer tariff system on photovoltaic products, with these tariffs often being cumulatively imposed, **thus raising the cost of deploying solar energy in the U.S.** Musk has publicly criticized that these tariffs artificially inflate the economics of solar energy, "slowing down the pace of clean energy adoption."

What Musk pointed out is essentially a realistic path for the current photovoltaic industry in the U.S.: in a high-tariff environment, the costs of directly importing solar cells and modules remain high. **Rather than continuously bearing tariff costs, companies prefer to introduce Chinese equipment to build factories domestically, shifting costs to capital expenditures and adding local subsidies, thereby achieving a better overall cost structure.**

**On the other hand, the domestic solar manufacturing capacity in the U.S. is insufficient.** According to data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, the U.S. is expected to see a significant increase in new solar installations in 2024, bringing the cumulative installed capacity close to or exceeding 235.7 GW. The EIA predicts that its share of national electricity generation will be about 5%, making it a major contributor to new electricity but not yet a mainstay for baseload power.

At the same time, pressure on the demand side continues to rise. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. electricity consumption is expected to hit a historical high for the second consecutive year in 2025, with further increases anticipated in 2026 and 2027—as the surge in demand from artificial intelligence data centers and manufacturing is making electricity shortages one of the most urgent issues to resolve in the U.S.

Under the triple pressure of insufficient supply, surging demand, and tariff barriers, bypassing module tariffs and directly procuring Chinese-manufactured equipment to build domestic capacity has become the fastest and most economical path to breaking the deadlock When the world's most ambitious energy planners choose to bet on Chinese manufacturing, that itself is the answer—what China’s photovoltaic industry has gained through over a decade of elimination rounds is not just a ticket to entry, but a core position in the new global energy order that cannot be shaken by any external pressure.

Source: Tencent Technology

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