On March 9th, it was reported by domestic media that Zhao Anji, Chairman and CEO of the American Fu Mao Group, passed away in a car accident at the age of 50, with the cause of the accident now clarified.
According to reports, due to the cold weather, Zhao Anji chose to drive a Tesla Model X instead of walking, as it would only take four minutes to return to the main house.
As per the reconstruction of the scene, Zhao Anji failed to properly engage the forward gear while making a three-point turn (turning around on a narrow road), instead putting it into reverse gear.
She had made similar mistakes with the Tesla gear lever before. The car rapidly reversed, flipped over a embankment, and plunged into a pond. The vehicle sank quickly.
Over the next few hours, her friends, the ranch manager and his wife, firefighters, and police attempted to extricate Zhao Anji from the car, but by the time they succeeded, it was too late. Zhao Anji was pronounced dead at the scene and was not transported to the hospital.
Public records show that Zhao Anji (1973-2024), born in the United States with ancestral roots in Shanghai's Jiading, was the younger sister of Zhao Xiaolan, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, and served as an independent non-executive director of the Bank of China. Zhao Xiaolan is the wife of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
