A barbecue chef in northwest China has gone viral after social media users noticed his striking resemblance to billionaire Elon Musk, drawing crowds of customers eager to take photos with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ma Jianping, 48, co-owns Yilan Restaurant in Tongchuan, Shaanxi province. A video of him serving food at the restaurant recently gained more than 1.3 million likes on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ma said his sudden popularity has doubled business at the restaurant, with many visitors stopping by to meet him, shake his hand and pose for pictures. Despite receiving multiple business offers, he said he has no plans to become a livestreamer and prefers to focus on running his restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Customers have also praised the chef for keeping his menu prices unchanged despite the surge in popularity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The resemblance has inspired a wave of memes online, with users joking that the restaurant should be renamed “Space X Barbecue” and creating AI-generated images comparing Ma to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A barbecue chef in northwest China has gone viral after social media users noticed his striking resemblance to billionaire Elon Musk, drawing crowds of customers eager to take photos with him. Ma Jianping, 48, co-owns Yilan Restaurant in Tongchuan, Shaanxi province. A video of him serving food at the restaurant recently gained more than 1.3 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":518724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[13754],"class_list":["post-518723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international","tag-elon-musk"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-2aWv","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/Captura-de-pantalla-2026-07-30-102301.png","dum_api":{"author_name":"Redacci\u00f3n De \u00daltimo Minuto","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cropped-logo-de-ultimo-minuto-96x96.png","categories_name":["International"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/Captura-de-pantalla-2026-07-30-102301.png"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}