Elon Musk Keeps Fans Guessing After Tweeting Mysterious Chinese Poem

• Elon Musk’s post generated significant attention on both Western and Chinese social media.

Ekohotblog reports that Musk has long shown an affinity for Chinese culture, praising the country’s efficiency and investing heavily to turn it into one of Tesla’s biggest markets.

Known for setting the internet ablaze with his cryptic tweets, Elon Musk is now doing it in another language.

Monday night, Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted an old Chinese poetry. It’s unclear what Musk was referring to, but the tweet, headlined “Humankind,” includes a piece known as the “Quatrain of Seven Steps.” The poem, which pertains to a feud between brothers, is well-known in China.

It is often attributed to Cao Zhi, son of an ancient Chinese warlord, who was said to live during the Three Kingdoms era (220 to 280 AD). Legend has it that Cao’s elder brother, a newly crowned king, was jealous of Cao’s talent.

Suspecting that his brother was trying to usurp his rule, the king then forced him to write a poem within the amount of time it took to walk just seven steps.

The rhyme translates into English as follows:

“Beanstalks are burned to cook beans
The beans weep in the pot
We grow from the same root
Why should we boil each other with such impatience?”

Tesla and SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk’s post generated significant attention on both Western and Chinese social media. It was a trending topic on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, on Tuesday.