Team China skier Eileen Gu criticized for Trump comments

American-born Team China Olympic skier Eileen Gu faced intense scrutiny on social media this week after commenting on President Donald Trump’s recent criticism of U.S. Olympian Hunter Hess.

Born in San Francisco, Gu is the world’s highest-paid Winter Olympic athlete, earning an estimated $23 million in 2025 alone from partnerships with Chinese companies and western companies, including the Bank of China. Gu said he was representing China on behalf of his mother, who was born there.

Gu has never spoken out against China’s alleged human rights abuses, including China’s alleged systematic campaign of oppression against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

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However, Gu commented on Trump’s criticism of Hess for expressing “mixed feelings” about representing the United States at Milan Cortina.

“I regret that the headline overshadowing the Olympics should be so unrelated to the spirit of the Games. It really goes against everything the Olympics are supposed to be about,” Gu told reporters on Monday.

“The whole point of sports is to bring people together. … It’s one of the very few common languages, the human body, the human spirit, the competitive spirit, not just the capacity to break records, but literally the breaking of human boundaries, especially in our sport. How wonderful is that?”

Gu also claimed that he too was “caught in the crossfire.”

“As someone who has been caught in the crossfire before, I feel bad for the athletes,” Gu said. “I hope they can ski their best.”

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Eileen Gu celebrates winning the gold medal after competing in the Freestyle Skiing Women’s Halfpipe Final at Genting Snow Park at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. (Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports)

Gu’s comments sparked outrage on social media; many critics have noted that Gu has never spoken out against China for its alleged human rights abuses.

Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom harshly criticized Gu in a lengthy X post, calling him a “traitor.”

“Eileen Gu is a traitor. She was born in America, raised in America, lives in America, and chose to compete against her own country for China, the worst human rights violator on the planet. She rose to fame in a free country, then chose to represent an authoritarian regime while cashing in on endorsements from watchdog groups linked to mass detention and forced labor camps. When human rights come into question, she disappears,” Kanter wrote.

“This is not neutrality. This is a choice. He chose to play for a country that is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of its own people and currently runs concentration camps, rather than the country in which he was born and given the opportunity.”

Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, also noted Gu’s silence on China’s alleged persecution of Uyghurs and political imprisonment of people who oppose Xi Jinping.

“Listen, it’s okay for athletes to criticize the US president. It’s also not that interesting because it happens all the time. What’s interesting about this story is… Eileen Gu is an American skier competing for China. There’s no mention of whether the CCP’s genocide of the Uyghurs ‘goes against everything the Olympics are supposed to be.'” Sobolik wrote of X: Jimmy Lai, Pastor Ezra Jin, Gulshan Abbas, or any of the many other political prisoners in China “No criticism of Xi Jinping for his imprisonment.”

“If you criticize America but don’t say a word about the CCP, it says a lot about you. If you’re an American athlete using the freedom this country has given you to represent an authoritarian regime, it says even more.”

Republican communications expert Matt Whitlock echoed similar criticism of Gu in his X post.

“I can’t think of a worse voice on this issue than an athlete who had his American citizenship stripped for the sake of the Chinese Communist Party’s endorsement deals. Does Eileen Gu have any criticism of Xi Jinping for genocide, slavery, and detaining dissidents?” Whitlock wrote.

Several other X users spoke out against Gu.

Trump has been one of the most discussed figures at this year’s Winter Olympics, with many athletes, including Hess, making salacious criticisms of the way Trump is leading the United States.

Trump posted a scathing post on social media, calling Hess a “real loser.”

“US Olympic Skier Hunter Hess, a true Loser, says he is not representing his Country at the current Winter Olympics,” he wrote.

“If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s in it too. It’s hard to support someone like that. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Hess initially said about representing the United States: “I think representing the United States right now brings up mixed emotions. It’s a little difficult. There’s a lot of things going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t either.”

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Chinese Eileen Gu reacted to the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. Monday, February 9, 2026. (David Davies/PA Images via Getty Images)

“I think for me, it’s more of representing my friends and family back home, the people who represented it before me, everything that I believe is good about the United States. If it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it. Just because I wear the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the United States.”

“I want to do this for my friends, my family, and the people who supported me coming here.”

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