A video posted on July 26 showing Ma Jianping grilling skewers at his restaurant in Tongchuan attracted more than 800,000 likes within two days, with social media users jokingly calling him the “Shaanxi Elon Musk” and suggesting he rename the eatery “SpaceX Barbecue,” Chinese news site Sina reported.
Ma, who has spent more than a decade working as a barbecue chef, said he had occasionally been told he looked like Musk, ranked the world’s richest man by Forbes with a net worth of over US$700 billion.
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A photo shared on Weibo shows Ma Jianping serving grilled meat to customers at his restaurant in Shaanxi on July 26, 2026. |
Ma said on July 27 that his newfound resemblance to Musk had dramatically boosted business.
Over the previous two days, more than a dozen visitors had stopped by to take photos with him, while the restaurant had also welcomed noticeably more customers than usual, the South China Morning Post reported.
An investor in the restaurant, surnamed Li, said the resemblance had long been noticed by customers, but the online attention has dramatically boosted the restaurant’s popularity, Chinese news site 163.com reported.
Many Chinese netizens have commented about Ma’s resemblance to Musk on Chinese social media.
“They look so alike, Half-brothers,” a netizen wrote.
“Isn’t that a coincidence? They both have the surname Ma,” another wrote.
Elon Musk’s phonetic transliteration in Chinese is Yilong Masike, and he has also been referred to with the sinicized Chinese name Ma Yilang.
A video shared on Chinese social platforms shows Ma Jianping at his barbecue restaurant in China’s Shaanxi Province.