Is Tesla Giga Shanghai Production Halt A Way For China To Show Who Is The Manufacturing 'Boss?'

China is flexing its supply-chain muscles by suspending production at Tesla Inc TSLA's Giga Shanghai due to COVID-19 curbs and reminding the world who is the "boss" when it comes to manufacturing, Loup Ventures founder Gene Munster said on Thursday.

What Happened: Munster said China appears to be leveraging pandemic and geopolitical circumstances to further disrupt global supply chains.

“It feels like using the COVID-19 outbreak example does have a little bit of merit to it,” Munster said in a discussion with Andrew Murphy.

“But the real substance is China reminding the world who is the boss when it comes to manufacturing.”

See Also: Tesla Said To Halt Production In China For 2 Days Amid COVID-19 Outbreak

Munster cited the severe power outages in China last year due to high demand and soaring energy prices, which led to widespread production halt and further squeezed the already messed up global supply chains. 

Apple’s Power Play: The analyst pointed out that Apple Inc AAPL supplier Foxconn Technology Group, officially known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co HNHPF, has resumed partial operations at two of its Shenzhen campuses, one of which makes iPhones.

“Supply chain and operations are Tim Cook's superpower. He got to where he is today because he was able to scale up Apple from zero to hundreds of millions of units and you don't do that without ... strong relationships with China,” Murphy said.

See Also: Apple's Key Supplier Resumes Partial Operation At Shenzhen Campuses

The analysts said China had done an incredible job leveraging the supply-chain power in recent months and at the same time, balanced that with relationships with major global players such as Apple and Tesla.

Price Action: Tesla stock closed 4.8% higher at $840.23 a share on Wednesday.