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Tencent, Asia\u2019s second highest valued tech firm, has bought a five percent share in Tesla. According to a filing<\/a>, the Chinese firm scooped up\u00a08,167,544 shares for around $1.7 billion to become\u00a0one of Tesla\u2019s largest shareholders.<\/p>\n The purchase was arrange\u00a0on March 17, and those now-Tencent-owned shares are worth around\u00a0$2.2 billion. The news itself sent Tesla\u2019s share price up three percent in pre-market trading.<\/p>\n Tencent is a prolific investor. It holds equity in Snap, this year\u2019s hot tech IPO, among others following an early investment<\/a>. While that interest in messaging makes sense since Tencent\u2019s operates China\u2019s dominant chat app \u2014 WeChat \u2014 it isn\u2019t immediately clear whether the Tesla investment has strategic undertones. Others in its portfolio include Didi Chuxing, China\u2019s largest taxi on-demand service, which is in the process of buying Uber China<\/a> and recently launched a U.S.-based research lab<\/a>.<\/p>\n Disclosure of this investment comes after Tencent made a series of announcements around its artificial intelligence efforts<\/a>. The firm poached a senior machine learning researcher from rival Baidu to staff its China-based AI research lab. It also revealed that its had defeat a high-ranking Japanese Go player in its latest battle with a human player. Google\u2019s AlphaGo, of course, made headlines when it defeated an ex\u00a0world champion of the ancient Asia strategy game<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Tencent last week led a $350 million investment<\/a> in popular photo sharing and video streaming app Kuaishou, which we previously reported is aiming\u00a0to go public in the U.S.<\/a> as soon as this year.<\/p>\n Tencent just had a record year of revenue growth after it reported total sales of $21.9 billion for 2016<\/a>. That figure was up 48 percent, representing the company\u2019s highest revenue jump since 2012.\u00a0Net profit for the year increased by 43 percent to reach $5.9 billion.<\/p>\n Featured Image: Darrell Etherington<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/03\/tesla-kauai-14.jpg?w=680\")
Tencent, Asia’s second highest valued tech firm, has bought a five percent share in Tesla. According to a filing, the Chinese firm scooped up\u00a08,167,544 shares for around $1.7 billion to become\u00a0one of Tesla’s largest shareholders. The news itself sent Tesla’s share price up three percent in pre-market trading. The purchase was arranged on March 17, and those… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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