Foreign companies remain vigilant amid Korea's political turmoil

Elon Musk ‘shocked’ by Yoon’s martial law declaration

By Park Jae-hyuk

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s unexpected martial law declaration on Tuesday, followed by its lifting about six hours later, baffled foreign companies doing business in Korea. As a result, many companies rescheduled their events here and advised employees to work from home.

Foreign businesspeople are reportedly following the advice of their respective embassies, most of which have urged their citizens to avoid large gatherings.

Unlike martial law decrees issued under the late President Park Chung-hee’s military dictatorship in the 1970s, the latest martial law decree, issued at 11 p.m. on Tuesday, even lacked a clause stating that the government would guarantee the freedom of foreigners to engage in economic activities and travel in Korea, including for tourists.

“We will thoroughly monitor this situation, but there is nothing significant to report at this moment,” said the spokesperson of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea, the largest foreign business lobby group here.

Citing safety concerns, however, Microsoft Korea canceled Wednesday’s session of Artificial Intelligence Transformation Week, which was supposed to be held online on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The U.S. tech firm explained that the decision was made to prevent its employees and partners from encountering any potential accidents near a studio for the event, which was located adjacent to the National Assembly.

Korean subsidiaries of IBM and Intel also recommended their employees work from home.

Although Meta and S&P Global held their respective press conferences in Seoul on Wednesday as planned, both U.S. companies said they made their decisions at the very last minute.

In particular, S&P’s researchers had to answer questions about the political turmoil’s impact on Korea’s sovereign credit rating, changing their initial plan to talk about geopolitical uncertainty following the reelection of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Many foreign financial institutions also had to respond to phone calls overnight from investors in London and Singapore, although S&P told reporters that the current situation will have a limited impact on Korea’s sovereign credit rating.

The Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the second-largest foreign business lobby group here, expressed concerns about the recent development, saying that it is closely monitoring the situation.

Mercedes-Benz Korea, one of the chamber’s members, recommended that its employees work from home on Wednesday morning, despite the lifting of martial law.

The European Chamber of Commerce in Korea declined to comment on political issues, but the chamber said it had been checking the latest announcements from the embassies of European countries.

Among the other foreign companies that asked their employees to work from home were China’s AliExpress and Japan’s Fujitsu.

“I never imagined that a martial law declaration would make me work from home,” a Fujitsu Korea employee said.

The martial law-triggered chaos has even drawn attention from foreign businesspeople outside of Korea.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented “Wow” on a post on X about the National Assembly’s unanimous passing of a resolution to lift martial law, three hours after he responded to another post stating, “President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea has declared martial law!!”

The billionaire, who has repeatedly shown his interest in Korea by mentioning the country’s low birthrates, also replied, “Yeah, this is shocking,” in response to a user asking, “What is happening in South Korea right now?”