China’s 2025 GDP beats America’s by $7 trillion and the EU by $14 trillion, “a surprise to most people” – Elon Musk

China has reportedly surged ahead of the United States and the European Union in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), according to new data shared by Tesla and xAI CEO Elon Musk.

Musk attributed the figures to his AI firm’s model Grok, which placed China’s GDP in 2025 reaching $35.29 trillion. This is compared to $28.78 trillion for the United States and $21.99 trillion for the EU.

In a post on April 29, Musk talked about the numbers and said, “This comes as a surprise to most people.” The numbers he gave suggest that China’s economy is about 1.23 times bigger than the US economy and 1.6 times bigger than the EU economy, based on PPP figures.

World Economics also published projections that were in line with Musk’s claim. It estimates China’s 2025 GDP to be $43.2 trillion, up from $41.3 trillion in 2024 and 26% higher than the World Bank’s official figures.

China’s economic state stronger than US in 2025

The National Bureau of Statistics, which assessed China’s GDP on April 16, announced that it reached 31.88 trillion yuan, or approximately $4.4 trillion, a 5.4% increase year over year in real terms.

Total retail sales of consumer goods in the first quarter stood at 12.5 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion), a 4.6% increase compared to the same period in 2024. Growth in March reached 7.7%, the highest since December 2023. Online retail sales climbed upwards of 7.9% to 3.6 trillion yuan ($493.2 billion) in the same period.

Total trade volume reached 10.3 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) in the first quarter, up 1.3% year-on-year. Exports rose 6.9% to 6.1 trillion yuan ($834.4 billion), but imports fell by 6% to 4.2 trillion yuan ($567.5 billion), against the backdrop of weak domestic demand. Total trade reached 3.8 trillion yuan ($512.5 billion).