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China's First "Ma Xian" Lei Jun: The Hall Worships Jobs, Musk, Huang Renxun, Invites the Strongest Tech Immortal to Possess Him, From Leather Jackets to Squatting on the Street Eating Noodles – Full Costume. Fifteen Years of Rotating Possessions, Now the Financial Report Halved, Huang Immortal Just Finished Possessing, Next Should Be Himself Turning Around the Mirror

1# · OP Author:一个狠人 Published:2026-06-22 23:45 Replies:0 Views:19 Permalink:fanzei.net/d_2224dr

This video explores Xiaomi founder Lei Jun’s “imitation show” behavior, likening it to a Northeast “chuma xian” (spirit medium), arguing that for fifteen years he has continuously imitated tech leaders such as Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang, and compares his behavior pattern to Tencent’s localization strategy. The article analyzes the business strategy and psychological factors behind Lei Jun’s imitation, pointing out that this imitation is both forced by market conditions and may stem from his inner “impostor syndrome”. The video also incorporates Xiaomi’s recent financial report data, analyzing issues such as the decline in smartphone gross margin and the slowdown in automotive business growth, and offers three possible future outcome predictions for Lei Jun.

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Observe things as they are, reject fragmented cognition. These past two days Lei Jun’s imitation‑show addiction has resurfaced. I feel that if he ever goes bankrupt, what could he do afterward? He could go to Northeast China and become a chuma xian or something. In a Northeast chuma xian hall, what is usually worshipped? Various spirit deities: fox, yellow weasel, white mouse, willow (snake), gray (hedgehog), etc. Whoever is summoned possesses that deity’s body and shows things to others. Generally, a diligent chuma xian will also imitate the state of the animal spirit. For example, when the yellow weasel possesses, the demeanor changes – the tone becomes a bit sleazy, speech a little stuttery, saying things like “this matter is like that,” which are characteristic of a yellow weasel. Is this Lei Jun? This time it’s impressive; after the hall is set up, what can be worshipped? Various tech big‑wigs. For instance, just call “Joe the Founder” to possess and show something, right? Following the principle that there are only wrong names, not wrong nicknames, I think from now on we can call Lei Jun “Lei Da Chuma Xian.” Whoever gets a chance to meet him in person, please ask him when the hall will be established. If he really does it, let the brothers know; I’ll definitely line up for a number. A while ago Jensen Huang came to China wearing his signature leather jacket, and in his spare time he didn’t run to Beijing streets to slurp noodles or eat ice cream, but took selfies with passersby – didn’t that spark discussion? Huang’s whole process seemed very down‑to‑earth. Just a few days later, Lei Jun’s “old Huang” possession energy emerged, and he started crouching on a Wuhan street eating hot dry noodles, doing a street‑style shoot. Kids passing by were especially puzzled, seeing a big man eating noodles without stopping, gathering a crowd for a staged photo – that’s breakfast.

It could be considered a special kind of insult, but the same thing also went viral. This time, however, the keyword people are using is no longer something down-to-earth, but three characters: "Mom is back." Next time, people will just say, "Ah, here it comes again." This shows a lack of basic respect for the so‑called "exorcist". You have to ask, "Which exorcist is back this time?" This time it’s really the "Yellow" exorcist, the Huang of Jensen Huang. This is actually the best entry point for understanding that Lei Jun is a fool. The point isn’t the specific imitation itself, but that this pattern of behavior has been playing out in an almost suffocatingly regular cycle for the past fifteen years. Whether it’s Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, or any rising star in the tech world, as soon as they emerge, “Master Lei” quickly follows current events, changes his headline, and then reshapes his persona. Anyone who can take his place must adhere to a principle: the exorcist team must stay advanced and keep up with the times. The top spot for a Chinese exorcist belongs to Lei, and the deeper you dig, the harder it is to tell whether this is a systematic strategy of a top business genius or a personal inner dilemma of someone who can’t step out of the mirror.

First, let’s look at Lei’s whole transformation journey. He has gone through three major metamorphoses. The first, of course, is the Steve Jobs era. In 2011, at the 798 venue, he held his first smartphone launch. On stage, he initiated a “summoning ceremony” for the “Job Master,” wearing a black T‑shirt that mimicked Jobs, the iconic blue jeans, and canvas shoes—much like a Northeastern shaman. The costume was spot‑on, professional, regardless of what else was happening. After feeling the presence of the Job Master, Lei’s “exorcist” vibe appeared, and at the end of the presentation the big screen displayed the phrase “one more thing,” prompting the audience to screenshot and compare it with a 1997 Jobs speech.

The second transformation is the Elon Musk era. In 2023, when the “car‑making” hype hit, his persona switched completely: the black T‑shirt vanished, replaced by a casual suit with a dark shirt and no tie—the same outfit Musk often wears at Tesla events. The launch stopped focusing on phone specs and started talking about reshaping human travel and redefining the automobile narrative. He even posted a photo of himself sleeping in a factory, echoing the global meme of Musk lying beside a Tesla production line. Financial media then started saying that Master Lei had turned from “Lei Bus” into “Lei Musk,” with Musk becoming the main figure in Lei’s “exorcist” showcase.

When Lei’s formal look was at its peak, the “Yellow” exorcist appeared, injecting the Jensen Huang vibe back into Lei’s persona. This has been happening since last February at the “Aochuang” launch, where Lei wore the signature black leather jacket. So you see how formidable Lei is—he can summon the most powerful figures of the moment, rotating them at will. Such a person should never be allowed into the “sand customs,” because if he entered, the dragon veins of the whole Qing dynasty would be awakened. Moreover, Lei is not only dedicated, but his level of dedication surpasses that of ordinary Northeastern “horse‑riding exorcists.” Just look at his costume: once he puts it on, he doesn’t just copy the clothing; he replicates the entire narrative framework, the presentation style, and the full persona across social media.

All the numbers are complete sets, each point telling everyone, "Hey, my fairy has arrived!" My Lei fairy is not a fake without sugar! The most classic is Su Qi Lei Jun himself, who has publicly said on several occasions that the project's goal was to fully benchmark against Porsche. When he said that, he probably thought it showed ambition. But the fun came when the whole internet used AI images to scan Su Qi's photos, and the result? AI completely identified Su Qi as the Porsche Taycan, giving rise to the nicknames "Bao Shi Mi" and "Mi Shi Jie" at that time. To dispel the rumor, he even hired a former chief designer from BMW as a consultant, thinking that a foreign designer’s name would validate his design, yet it couldn’t explain why, even with a master’s hand, the car was widely considered a Porsche. The phone’s benchmarking history goes back even further; for example, the Xiaomi Mi 8’s notch was almost identical to the iPhone X’s.

It was the exact same gap, and during the Xiaomi era they simply jumped to align with the iPhone era, and then Lei’s fairy was repeatedly reincarnated. In that launch event, Apple or iPhone was mentioned over thirty‑seven times, plus the so‑called ecosystem products—air purifiers, TV boxes, power banks—everything was benchmarked against Japan’s BANDA and Apple TV. That event had so many people taking turns on stage that even a chicken‑boy couldn’t handle it. Yet Lei Da Chong Ma Xian held on. To understand Lei Da Chong Ma Xian, you first need to understand Tencent, because this whole copying thing was literally copied from Tencent. Let me explain: back in 1999 Tencent launched QQ, which was benchmarked against the American instant messenger ICQ. Tencent’s approach was to copy first, then localize, translate it into Chinese, add features familiar to Chinese users, and use massive traffic to dominate the market.

Tencent later applied this same playbook repeatedly to WeChat games, WeChat Pay, each time iterating the same logic. Lei Da’s fairy is essentially the hardware version of Tencent’s logic, so its copying follows Tencent’s copying. When you place these two systems side by side, the picture becomes clear: Tencent was the first to ride the Lei Da fairy, entering the market by benchmarking proven, mature products, with the core weapons of localization, cost advantage, and scale harvesting. Xiaomi’s greatest strength isn’t any single phone, but the concept of “Mi fans” itself. Think about it: who are Mi fans? They are Xiaomi’s cheapest PR, R&D, and sales departments combined. When Xiaomi gets criticized, these people spontaneously step in to rebut, saving huge crisis‑PR costs. The weekly system iterations rely on genuine feedback from Mi fans in the forums, a cost‑extremely‑low user‑research method, and in the early product stage there’s zero advertising budget, relying on Mi fans’ organic viral spread to gradually infiltrate the market.

Later, Huawei, for reasons unknown, also adopted the Lei fairy. What did it do? It turned buying Xiaomi into a declaration of identity: “I am a rational consumer, I support the rise of domestic brands.” It gave Xiaomi users a philosophical label, elevating them to believers in a cost‑performance philosophy. Once this identity forms, price sensitivity drops, and brand loyalty can even surpass the product’s actual quality. Under the Lei fairy’s influence, there is a widely quoted line, though few examine it deeply: essentially, it means to be friends with users rather than treating them like gods. The commercial implication is clear—gods are to be pleased, friends are to be bound, and friends will speak for you.

Speaking of this, we have to mention the most ingenious yet most easily misinterpreted part of this strategy: the "hit‑and‑run" marketing. Many people see Lei Jun copying Huang Renxun, or the Musk incident, as a PR crisis, which is a fundamental misjudgment of Xiaomi’s communication strategy. Those controversies are themselves a communication tactic, the same logic as the Northeast “Chu Ma Xian’er” phenomenon. Once you put on that persona, you have to shout loudly. "Look, which immortal has possessed me again?" It’s the same feeling. The audience wants that sudden, dramatic entrance. Look at the guy in the leather jacket—once you see that, you get it. Last year, Lei Xian’er first appeared on stage in a leather jacket, and the hot search was "Lei Jun copying Huang Renxun." Then he started responding on Weibo, and the hot search shifted to "Lei Jun responds to leather jacket controversy." His response was brief, essentially saying, "Is it a crime to wear a leather jacket and be accused of copying Huang Renxun, or to wear a suit and be accused of copying Musk?" He called it "absurd."

In one sentence he maximized the sense of grievance and flipped public opinion. Immediately after, Xiaomi did something: they launched the same leather jacket, sold out in five minutes, and the hot search turned into "Xiaomi leather jacket sold out." Finally, media across the net dissected this phenomenon‑level marketing, giving it another wave of attention: four waves of hot searches—controversy, product, sales, and secondary spread—forming a complete closed loop. Each wave looked like a crisis PR, but was actually a designed conversion funnel. The Porsche case followed the exact same pattern; it was accused of looking like a Porsche. Lei Da Xian didn’t dodge it, but instead mentioned Porsche positively at a press conference, which ended up cementing the cheap‑Porsche image in the public mind. That nickname is a positioning that no amount of ad spend can buy. Now what we need to do is reposition that branding to my hometown, between the white mountains and black waters—where Lei Xian’s style naturally belongs.

There is more room for development. Of course, just telling the story isn’t enough; we need to look at the numbers. I already analyzed Xiaomi’s financial report last month, and today I’ll bring it up again. If you want the full version, search for the video. In 2025, Xiaomi delivered a record‑breaking annual report: total revenue of 457.3 billion yuan, up 25 % year‑on‑year. Adjusted net profit was 39.2 billion yuan, up 43.8 % year‑on‑year, both hitting new highs since the IPO. Even the most watched automotive segment broke 100 billion yuan for the first time, reaching 106.1 billion yuan, and for the first time posted a profit of 9 billion yuan; deliveries surged to 410,000 units. The numbers look great, right? However, when you flip to the Q1 2026 Xiaomi report, the picture changes. Q1 revenue was only 99.1 billion yuan, down 10.9 % year‑on‑year, and adjusted net profit fell to 6.1 billion yuan, a 43.1 % plunge—essentially halved.

These issues, hidden beneath the glow of the strongest annual reports, began to surface one by one in early 2026. The phone gross margin was hit by memory price hikes, dropping to 8.3 %; R&D intensity fell to 7.2 %, an extremely low ratio. Take Xiaomi’s proud phone business: the problem isn’t a retreat from high‑end; on the contrary, Xiaomi’s high‑end segment has been rising. In 2025, models priced above 3,000 yuan accounted for 27.1 % of sales, up nearly four points from the previous year. The hidden problem is that the phone business is becoming less valuable and less profitable. In the second half of 2025, components like memory, storage, and chips surged in price, crushing Xiaomi’s phone gross margin—from 12 % in Q4 2024 down to 11.1 % in Q3 2025.

In the fourth quarter, it fell precipitously to a historic low of 8.3%. Revenue from phones for the year also dropped 2.8% year‑on‑year, exposing a fatal weakness in Xiaomi's entire industrial chain: it has virtually no pricing power in front of its upstream suppliers. Who are its upstreams? Samsung, Hynix—so long as they don’t raise prices, Xiaomi lacks the brand premium that Apple enjoys and cannot pass costs onto its price‑sensitive fans, leaving only the financial statements to bear the burden. Looking at the automotive side, in 2025 it generated 900 million yuan of operating profit, which sounds good, but its gross margin has already peaked and is falling, sliding from 25.5% in the third quarter to 22.7% in the fourth quarter. Previously the management boasted that once scale increased, margins would rise even higher. In reality, they reversed course, clearing inventory to meet delivery targets, discounting showroom cars at year‑end.

The most interesting thing emerges when you look at Chinese netizens' attitudes toward Lei Da Xian’er. You’ll notice a peculiar duality: the same people who berate him for copying also spend money to support him. In fact, many are the same crowd. This love‑and‑hate stems from projection. This generation of Chinese youth lives in a commercial atmosphere that imitates the West locally, which is almost the only successful path. Lei Da Xian’er sometimes channels Steve Jobs, sometimes Elon Musk—this is merely a microcosm of the industry’s imitation of Western tech trends. At the same time, the CCP uses administrative measures to keep original creators out of the Chinese market; for example, Google can’t enter, so Baidu exists, and foreign social media are blocked, giving rise to WeChat. So the cycle continues: after the insults, you still have to buy, because the original products are unavailable.

The CCP blocks external competition. Why does Lei Xian keep summoning these “immortals”? Here we need a behavioral‑psychology perspective. First, this is a hypothesis, not a conclusion. Humans seeking social recognition generally have two routes: create something entirely new for the world to emulate—Steve Jobs took this path—or imitate successful models, using proven, mature systems. Lei Xian follows the latter, benefiting from the CCP’s market protection mechanism that creates a closed market without production costs but with scale advantages—this is why the Chinese market can produce Xiaomi and Tencent. Lei Xian’s brilliance lies in the depth of imitation: it’s not just copying technology, but also clothing, posture, and conference language, requiring a deeper psychological identification.

Psychology calls this “impostor syndrome”: even when objectively successful and wealthy, one still feels like a fraud waiting to be exposed. Certain behaviors of Lei Jun—over‑sensitivity to criticism of imitation, repeatedly magnifying achievements, bragging, and fiercely defending market share—align with this mindset. What’s rare is that he has tamed this insecurity into commercial execution. When financial results dip, he instinctively thinks the “Bojia immortal” isn’t strong enough, prompting him to summon the “Bojia immortal” again—a seasoned tactic. Thus, you see two Lei Xians operating simultaneously: in business strategy, you must acknowledge his capabilities. From supply‑chain integration to cost‑performance positioning, almost every major decision reflects his influence.

Behind big decisions there is an internal logic, and most of them have been proven correct. But once it reaches the dissemination level, his impulsiveness becomes puzzling, and he must always have some fairy on himself, otherwise he feels completely uncomfortable—how is that? We don’t know, and we don’t dare to ask. He knows that wearing a leather jacket will be called copying Lao Huang, so why copy? He knows that posting a photo of sleeping in a factory will be screenshotted and compared to Musk, so why sleep? Why post? Why take a picture? So I think this split has two explanations. One leans toward conspiracy theory: all these impulses are carefully staged performances, and each dissemination is seen as forced response. On this explanatory path everything is premeditated because the result always benefits Xiaomi. The other leans toward psychology: he has genuine psychological needs—he needs the symbols recognized by the times to reinforce his sense of identity—so he will act irrationally beyond strategic rationality.

Emotion‑driven choices, calling on this “Bulgaria fairy” to possess him, then using post‑hoc dissemination techniques to patch things up. I think the most likely truth is that the two are inseparable; his psychological structure and his business strategy are highly fused, so we can’t tell which causes which. It’s simple: if he were only copying products, the framework would be limited to the product itself, and we could say his business strategy has boundaries. But his imitation has permeated his personal image, conference language, even his social displays like what he eats, blurring those boundaries. In other words, he may be unable to be independent of the prototype, and those “fairies” can’t establish an independent self‑recognition. There is indeed a line between the two. In terms of psychological suggestion, that line has become completely blurred for Lei Jun. People may wonder what the ceiling of “Lei Fairy” actually is.

Where? I think there are roughly three outcomes. The best one—no need to elaborate—is that the “Lei Great” doesn’t appear, successfully transcends, and completes his own self‑validation. You’ll see whether I look more like a human or a god—this is the thing. In this case, if Xiaomi’s car truly moves from loss to profit and Lei Jun actually creates a world‑first in some field, then on that day he may no longer need a mirror because he becomes others’ mirror. That’s the best and most difficult outcome, but it’s a low‑probability event. The high‑probability outcome is that his comfort zone locks him in, continuing to dig pits in industry‑chain integration and cost‑performance. Yet China is now in a consumption‑downgrade era, and this model can’t generate any more incremental growth. That’s a neutral outcome. The most dangerous outcome is the loss of direction after the mirror disappears. For example, in the AI era no sufficiently strong tech idol emerges for him to benchmark, or the next prototype is something he simply can’t imitate.

If it were a pure tech topic, what would happen to his matrix? It would lose external input sources. A person who builds self‑recognition through an external mirror, once the mirror is gone, may fall into genuine strategic confusion. I even think the final question may have no answer even for Lei Jun himself. If one day he can’t find anyone worth imitating, could he lose his mind and try to imitate the emperor? Like that stupid “Xiudi” asking strangers on the street, “Do I look more like a human or a god?” Anyway, the best advice: don’t touch me, otherwise I’ll throw a line at you—“You look like the donkey from Zhang Er Gou’s house.” That’s all for today. If you like the show, remember to ring the bell. If you want to support me, you can join the membership channel, which offers in‑depth programs for each driver. Welcome to join Hai Ren Tong Huo. See you in the next episode.

Key events timeline · Selected related nodes
2025
Xiaomi Releases Record-Breaking Annual Report: Total Annual Revenue Reaches 457.3 Billion, Net Profit 39.2 Billion
In 2025, Xiaomi released its highest-ever annual report since going public, with total annual revenue reaching 457.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25%; adjusted net profit was 39.2 billion yuan, up 43.8% year-on-year. Revenue from the automotive business exceeded 100 billion yuan, with a profit of 900 million yuan.
2026
Xiaomi's Financial Report Shows Revenue Decreased by 10.9% Year-on-Year, Net Profit Halved Year-on-Year
In the first quarter of 2026, Xiaomi's revenue was 99.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.9%; adjusted net profit was 6.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year drop of 43.1%, effectively being halved.
2011
Lei Jun mimics Steve Jobs at a smartphone launch event, using 'One more thing' and wearing similar attire
In 2011, at the Xiaomi smartphone launch event, Lei Jun imitated Steve Jobs by wearing a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and canvas shoes, and concluded with 'One more thing,' sporting a posture and outfit highly similar to Jobs.
2023
Lei Jun mimics Musk, changes his dress style, and discusses grand narratives
In 2023, against the backdrop of Xiaomi manufacturing cars, Lei Jun changed his dress style to a casual suit with a dark shirt and no tie, mimicking Elon Musk's image at Tesla launch events, and began discussing grand narratives such as "changing human travel."
Related topics Chinese Technology Xiaomi Lei Jun Imitation Show Business Strategy
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