Globalisation, technology, Elon Musk and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms

By Chin Foo Chun

WHAT HAS globalisation, technology, Elon Musk and Romance of Three Kingdoms got to do with one another?

Let’s start with Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, while Tesla’s stock price stays where it is today.

On 2 Nov 21, he tweeted a Chinese poem from the classic, Romance of Three Kingdoms, about Cao Cao’s sons, Cao Pi and Cao Zhi, contesting for power. Some say it is an oblique reference to the spat between the dodgy Dogecoin and the newer, perhaps less dodgy, Shiba Inu, which has overtaken Dogecoin in market value. Apparently, some consider Shiba Inu to be a token which aspires to be an Ethereum-based alternative to Dogecoin.

Musk has often in the past been a frequent advocate for Dogecoin. So what could be his message behind the poem. Let’s take a look.

The posted tweet was titled “Humankind” by Musk, although it is commonly known as the “Quatrain of Seven Steps,” the allegorical poem attributed to Cao Zhi. Legend goes that Cao Pi, freshly crowned king, was suspicious that his more popular brother was trying to usurp his rule. Cao Pi forced Cao Zhi to produce a poem that would proclaim his innocence, within seven strides. The poem is as follows:

Beanstalks are ignited to boil beans

The beans in the pot cry out.

We are born of the self-same root

Why should we incinerate each other with such impatience?

It is kind of curious that Elon Musk would refer to this Chinese poem. Where could he have learnt of this? I have two conspiracies to offer:

1. Tesla’s largest factory is now the Shanghai Gigafactory. Perhaps over drinks or dinner, one of his Chinese executives told him the story, which caught his imagination?
2. Leo KoGuan, who is now Tesla’s third largest individual shareholder (after Elon Musk and Larry Ellison), has met Musk before. He is a former Chinese Indonesian, inspired by the Xuan Yuan’s Chinese rule of law, and now a Professor at Tsinghua. He has the KoGuan School of Law at Shanghai JiaoTong University, and the Leo KoGuan Law Building at Tsinghua University, named after him. Maybe he told Musk the story?   

Both Elon Musk and Leo KoGuan are children of globalisation.

Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa. His father was a South African engineer, entrepreneur and property developer. His Canadian mother was a model and dietitian. He grew up and was schooled in Pretoria. Moving to Canada, he entered Queens University in Kingston, Ontario before transferring to UPenn. After graduating with BSc in economics and BA in physics, he was accepted to pursue a PhD in materials science at Stanford. After two days at Stanford, he dropped out and started his tech and business career – eventually becoming part of the PayPal mafia. He left PayPal and launched Tesla and Space X, and in the process became the richest man in the world.

Leo KoGuan is nowhere as rich as Elon Musk, but his stake in Tesla is worth a humbling US$7 billion or more. His story is much less known. He was born in Indonesia, studied international affairs at Columbia and then law at NYU. In 1989, KoGuan bought steeply discounted assets of a bankrupt New Jersey-based software supplier that became the basis of SHI – an IT solutions, product and services company. He ran the company with his then-wife, Thai Lee, who was the first Korean-American woman to enter Harvard Business School. By the time they divorced in 2002, it was pulling in annual revenues exceeding $1 billion. She is still currently CEO and SHI’s annual revenues are now US$11 billion. KoGuan remains as non-executive Chairman.

Leo KoGuan’s name came into the limelight when he bought the triplex penthouse apartment on top of the 65-storey Guoco Tower in Singapore from James Dyson – UK’s richest man. Guoco Tower was built and developed by Quek Leng Chan, a Chinese Malaysian tycoon.

Let’s consider the virtuous circle/cycle of globalisation here (my apologies if I stretched my imagination a bit). Chinese consumers buy Tesla cars made in the Shanghai Gigafactory by Chinese workers. This contributes to Elon Musk’s wealth which is propelled by buoyant US stock markets. This rubs off on an astute investor like Leo KoGuan who prospers with huge bets, as Tesla’s stock price catapults upwards. With a teeny weeny bit of his wealth, he purchases the Guoco Tower penthouse from James Dyson (whose wealth is generated in part through his factories in the Philippines and Malaysia). The success of the Guoco Tower development, in turn makes Quek Leng Chan richer, reinforcing his resources and ability to invest in more businesses like his semiconductor assembly & test business, packaging auto-chips going into cars – though not into Tesla cars, at least not yet. (It contributes to creating jobs and wealth for the middle class in Malaysia.)

So we have come full circle – a virtuous one, as Chinese consumers contribute to the flow of business and resources across the globe and leading to jobs which help drive consumption in Malaysia too. It is a wonderful story of the power of free market capitalism and Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” in a global context, as we connect the dots or beans as metaphorically referred to in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Unlike the beans in that famous poem, here the beans are enablers. Instead of incinerating one another, they work together seamlessly (without prior intent) across the globe – demonstrating the “shock and awe” power and synergies of globalisation.

• Chin Foo Chun is a former investment banker working for three global banks (JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas and CIBC) with regional responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific. Read more about him here.