Chinese technology company Xiaomi is facing a trust crisis after reports surfaced of a planned commercial approach to a controversial tech influencer, Wanneng de Daxiong (万能的大熊), who has a record of publicly insulting Xiaomi users.
The reports began circulating on Weibo on January 5. While no campaign went live, the news spread rapidly across Chinese social media and was enough to spark anger among Xiaomi’s core fan community, known as Mi Fans. Fans on Weibo said the move contradicted Xiaomi’s long-standing claim to “stand with users”, and that engaging an influencer who had repeatedly attacked them crossed a fundamental line of consumer trust.
Xiaomi has long championed its ‘Just for Fans’ philosophy, and management has since acknowledged that the incident “severely hurt the feelings of Mi Fans.” Campaign has learned that staff who handled the outreach have been dismissed and financial penalties imposed on two senior leaders, group VP and CMO Xu Fei and the PR chief Xu Jieyun.
Xiaomi’s founder, chairman and CEO, Lei Jun, appeared on a livestream on January 7 to tackle the crisis.
“We must take this matter seriously. This KOL has continually attacked and belittled Xiaomi users, even going so far as to curse them,” Lei said.
“As representatives of Xiaomi, we find this absolutely intolerable. Our stance is clear: we will stand firm in protecting our users and car owners. We will never accept any behaviour that defames our users. Therefore, we cannot cooperate with such a KOL. This is our bottom line.”
Campaign contacted Xiaomi’s communications team for additional commentary. The company declined to add to Lei’s remarks and its official statement released via its Weibo account.
Official apology for a deal that never went live
Wanneng de Daxiong, the influencer in the midst of the PR storm, is a polarising figure in the Chinese tech community with a history of hostile rhetoric towards Xiaomi users.
At one point, he called Mi Fans “negative assets” and wrote: “Xiaomi won’t die; the ones who will die are the Mi fans.”
In 2024, Lenovo slapped a defamation case against him. Daxiong lost the case, was ordered to issue a public apology and pay RMB160,000 (US$22,866) in damages. His Weibo account was temporarily banned at the time. Several years earlier, appliance maker Midea Group terminated a collaboration with him following public controversy.
For Mi Fans, the outreach alone was enough to prompt anger and was widely framed online as “paying our enemy with our money”.
Comment sections on the Weibo accounts of Lei Jun and Xu Jieyun, Xiaomi’s general manager of public relations, are flooded with angry messages from Mi Fans.
By around 9 pm on January 5, Xiaomi issued an emergency response (screenshot below). In a Weibo post, Xu Jieyun acknowledged that the team had been in contact with the influencer but said the planned collaboration had been terminated and that Xiaomi would not work with him in future.
“The feelings of Mi Fans are what we care about most,” Xu wrote.
The statement, however, failed to calm the situation, and users are still questioning how such a collaboration was approved in the first place.
Investigation, penalties and wider context
On January 6, Xiaomi announced the results of an internal investigation into the incident and said that disciplinary action would be taken against those directly responsible. Xu Fei, Xiaomi’s group vice president and chief marketing officer, and Xu Jieyun both received formal notices of criticism for management negligence. Their 2025 performance evaluations have been downgraded and annual bonuses revoked.
The episode comes at a sensitive time for Xiaomi. The brand is in the midst of the 17 Ultra smartphone promotions and the rollout of the new-generation SU7 EV in a refreshed colour and features. A lot rides on this revamped EV as it directly rivals Tesla’s Model 3.
Xiaomi’s SU7 has gained strong traction in China’s highly competitive domestic market. The brand sold more than 400,000 vehicles last year, its first full year as an automaker.
