Cao Dewang, chairman of Fuyao Glass Photo: VCG

Chinese glass manufacturing giant Fuyao Group published a clarification statement on its official website on Monday refuting recent rumors that the company's chairman Cao Dewang had attacked Tesla's high salary offers for employees, saying that such rumors have misled the public and have seriously infringed on the legitimate rights of Cao as well as the company.

According to the statement, recent rumors circulating on the internet are completely fabricated, taken out of context and edited in a malicious way to stir up a public backlash.

It said that Cao has never published any comments about Tesla's salary system.

Fuyao Glass' clarification statement was made after news of Tesla's relatively high salary offer to normal factory workers, about 10,000 yuan ($1,451) per month, has triggered a lot of discussion on domestic social media platforms. There also appeared articles citing Cao as saying that Tesla's pay rise is malicious because it damages the balance of China's labor market.

Those articles also "cited" Cao as saying that he'd rather donate 10 billion yuan than give pay rise to employees, because high salary would make young people lose the motivation for hard work. Most of those articles are published by independently operated social media accounts.

According to Fuyao Group's statement, the company has attached great importance to the well-being of its employees since the company's establishment and has actively shared corporate development achievements with them. For the past 10 years or so, the average annual compound growth rate of per capita salary has remained above 7 percent, the statement said.

The company also stressed in the statement that Cao has always been enthusiastic about charity and public welfare, and all donations are made out of his personal assets and has nothing to do the group. Meanwhile, Cao's personal assets must maintain independence from the company in accordance with the law and cannot be used for payment of salaries. 

Fuyao said that it demands the aforementioned rumor spreaders to remove the false content immediately. It also noted that it reserves the rights to pursue legal action against responsible parties. 

Fuyao Group's shares dropped by 0.51 percent on the Shanghai stock market on Monday.