President Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs provoked Beijing into demonstrating one of its key points of leverage.

Elon Musk said that China's new trade restrictions on rare earth magnets have affected the production of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots. He added that the company was working through the issue with Beijing and hoped to get approval to access the critical components.

China’s halt this month on exports of magnets containing heavy rare earth metals has affected Tesla’s plans to manufacture Optimus robots.