A Chinese tech giant just made a big bet on the future of Tesla
Tesla has a big new investor from China.
Technology company Tencent has purchased $1.8 billion of Tesla stock, giving it a 5 percent ownership in the futuristic car company.
This is far from your usual sleepy corporate investment.
Tencent is a massive technology conglomerate that owns a variety of major internet companies that are big in Asia. Among its biggest pieces is WeChat, a massively popular messing app that some believe is the future of mobile.
In addition to its owned and operated companies, Tencent also has investments in a variety of other operations, including Snapchat, Lyft and China's Uber competitor, Didi.
The Tesla investment gives Elon Musk's company a major partner in a market that it is eager to tap. China is already a major market for the company (2016 Tesla revenue in the country hit more than $1 billion), despite Musk playing relatively coy about Tesla's operations there.
Tencent's investment doesn't mean it'll have any control over the company (it will be the fifth-largest shareholder), but it indicates confidence in where Tesla is headed.
The investment also highlights how money from Asia has been quietly but steadily pouring into U.S. companies. Along with Tencent, Softbank, Baidu and Alibaba have all been buying into American companies. These companies have dropped $5.6 billion into 48 different deals over two years, according to CB Insights Data provided to CNBC.
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Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
