I'm not sure if China even needs to actively do anything in order to create a chilling effect on Musk. Maybe he will just censor things on the platform proactively to appease the relevant authorities/interests. That's of course speculation, but there's precedent for it happening already (see Disney[0])

Honestly though I'm just entertaining the idea. I'm not too worried about Musk's acquisition of Twitter

[0]: https://hir.harvard.edu/rated-c-for-censored-walt-disney-in-...