Elon Musk sang the praises of China's professional ethics on Automotive News' podcast Friday and said that American companies would lose out owing to their complacent and entitled attitude.

"China rocks in my opinion. The energy in China is great... There's like a lot of smart, hard-working people. And they're not entitled, they're not complacent, whereas I see in the United States increasingly much more complacency and entitlement especially in places like the Bay Area, and L.A. and New York," Musk elaborated.

He compared these regions and the entire country to the sports teams blinded by constant victories.

"When you've been winning for too long, you sort of take things for granted – the United States, and especially like California and New York, you've been winning for too long," Musk said.

"So, just like some pro sports team they win a championship you know a bunch of times in a row, they get complacent and they start losing," he noted, adding Tesla has received "the least government support of any car company" in the U.S.

Last year, Tesla Inc. lined up 1.6 billion U.S. dollars in financing from local banks in China to construct and begin manufacturing vehicles at its Shanghai factory. This February, the factory in Shanghai got back to normal operations quickly, after just two weeks of a government-ordered shutdown.

On Tuesday, the U.S. electric vehicle maker launched a hiring spree in Shanghai with plans to bring on designers at its China studio and about 1,000 factory workers, in order to ramp up production in the world's biggest auto market.

Musk projected that online car sales, as well as delivering cars direct to consumers will become even more of a standard after COVID-19, instead of selling via traditional dealerships.

Tesla saw "strong orders through the whole pandemic," cited Musk. The company reported that its deliveries declined by about 5 percent for the second quarter this year, while most other players saw sales plunge more than 30 percent during the same period due to COVID-19 impacts.

Last week, Tesla announced a net income of 104 million U.S. dollars from April to June,  marking the first time the company has posted a profit for four straight quarters.

Tesla shares closed down 3.8 percent on Friday.

(Cover image: Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory groundbreaking ceremony in Shanghai, China, January 7, 2019. /Reuters)