A barbecue chef in northwestern China has become an unlikely internet celebrity after viewers noticed his resemblance to Elon Musk.
Ma Jianping, 48, went viral after a video showed him serving customers at Yilan Restaurant in Tongchuan, Shaanxi province.
The July 26 clip received more than 1.3 million likes on Douyin within days, turning the previously quiet restaurant into a destination for diners seeking food, photographs and a meeting with the so-called “Chinese Elon Musk.”
Ma, however, says he feels “shy and nervous” about the fame and would rather continue working behind the grill than become a livestreaming personality.
Customers Turned a Restaurant Chef Into an Internet Celebrity
View this post on Instagram
Ma co-owns and operates Yilan Restaurant, where he spends long days preparing barbecue and serving customers. Originally from Gansu province, he previously worked as an electrician before entering the restaurant business.
Customers had apparently commented on his resemblance to Musk before the recent video exploded online. Visitors began arriving not only to eat but also to shake Ma’s hand, take selfies and see whether the resemblance was as striking in person as it appeared onscreen.
One customer told local media that he had previously seen only AI-generated images of Musk grilling meat and was excited to encounter someone who looked like the billionaire in real life. The diner also praised Ma for leaving his menu prices unchanged after the restaurant’s sudden increase in popularity.
The Viral Attention Has Roughly Doubled Business
Ma said business at the restaurant has approximately doubled since the Douyin video went viral. He reportedly begins working around 9 a.m. and often remains at the restaurant until after midnight, preparing food and helping serve the growing number of customers.
More than a dozen people have approached him with potential business opportunities, according to the South China Morning Post. Ma has declined those proposals and said he has no plans to turn his resemblance into a livestreaming career.
Social Media Imagined Musk Running a Barbecue Restaurant
Chinese social media users quickly transformed Ma into a source of Musk-themed jokes. Edited images placed the chef in business suits to emphasize the resemblance. Other posts imagined him grilling alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
One commenter joked that Musk had recovered the billions spent developing Starlink through the barbecue business. Others proposed renaming Ma’s restaurant “SpaceX Barbecue” or described the two men as long-lost brothers.
Ma’s surname added another layer to the jokes. Musk’s name is commonly transliterated in Chinese as Ma Si Ke, making the chef’s surname an easy starting point for wordplay.
Musk Previously Reacted to Another Chinese Lookalike
Should we deploy Chinese @elonmusk as a decoy? pic.twitter.com/iIxnXtIEMw
— Mark Anthony (@Muskstaycalm) May 9, 2022
Musk previously commented on another Chinese man who became internationally known for resembling him. The man, known online as Ma Yilong, attracted attention in 2021 and 2022 through videos in which he imitated Musk’s clothing, mannerisms and speech.
“I’d like to meet this guy (if he is real),” Musk wrote after seeing one of the comparisons. “Hard to tell with deepfakes these days.”
Ma Yilong’s content subsequently faced persistent questions about whether artificial-intelligence tools had enhanced the resemblance. Chinese platforms later placed AI-generated-content labels on many of his videos.