Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk posted on X on Wednesday, stating that "China is by far the strongest competitor in artificial intelligence as well," reaffirming his prediction from 15 years ago that China would ultimately become SpaceX's most significant rival in rocket technology.
Musk was responding to a post from tech commentator Brian Roemmele, who resurfaced a 2011 post from Musk in which he wrote: "In rocket technology, SpaceX is close to defeating Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Europe (Ariane series), and Russia (Proton/Soyuz). The key to the final showdown will be China."
That prediction has now regained practical relevance. Chinese private rocket company LandSpace successfully completed the landing and recovery of the first stage of its Zhuque-3 orbital rocket on Wednesday, becoming the first private launch provider in China to achieve a landing-leg-assisted ground recovery of an orbital-class booster. Prior to this milestone, China had already completed its first ocean recovery of an orbital-stage rocket in July, with the Long March 10B booster being captured and recovered at sea.
SpaceX has long dominated the reusable orbital launch sector, while Chinese companies are accelerating the development of low-cost launch systems. Predictions have already suggested that Chinese space launch companies could pose a challenge to SpaceX by 2030, and Musk has previously acknowledged that the Zhuque-3 has the potential to be a competitor to the Falcon 9.
Musk's latest post shifts the competitive focus to the artificial intelligence arena, where multiple indicators suggest the gap is also closing rapidly. Stanford University's 2026 AI Index Report notes that the model performance gap between the US and China has "effectively vanished." Since early 2025, AI systems from both countries have alternated in leading the field; as of March, the lead of Anthropic's top model over China's best model stood at just 2.7%.
In 2025, the US launched 59 representative AI models, compared to 35 from China; the US attracted $285.9 billion in private AI investment, while China drew $12.4 billion. However, China leads in the number of AI papers published, citations received, and granted patents.
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