A casual selfie between Elon Musk and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun set off a flurry of attention on Chinese social media, drawing millions of views and widespread comment. A Weibo hashtag roughly translating to “Lei Jun and Musk photo together” surpassed 20 million views, according to posts on the platform.
The image, circulated widely on May 14, 2026, showed Musk — CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of the social platform X — standing beside Lei, the founder and CEO of Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. The photograph was taken during a state banquet at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. Reuters distributed the image, which captioned the event as a state banquet attended by U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Online reactions focused on small details: many users said Musk’s wink in the picture stole the spotlight, while others praised Lei Jun for enthusiastically joining the moment and embracing the celebrity photo. The exchange quickly became a lighthearted topic of conversation, illustrating how brief, informal moments between high-profile tech figures can dominate social feeds.
