Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is visiting the U.S. from June 21 till 24 at the invitation of President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, met prominent U.S. personalities from different walks of life, including Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. The meeting comes amid talks about Tesla’s plans to enter the Indian market.
Tesla factory plans for India
Musk met with Modi at the New York Palace Hotel where the latter is staying during the first leg of his visit to the U.S. The tech billionaire opened up about Tesla’s potential entry into the Indian market segment, something that has been highly anticipated for a few years now.
“I am confident that Tesla will be in India and will do so as soon as humanly possible,” the CEO of Tesla made the big announcement while expressing his gratitude towards PM Modi for his support.
Musk gushed about Modi following his meeting on Tuesday, “He really cares about India because he’s pushing us to make significant investments in India, which is something that we intend to do and we’re just trying to figure out the right timing.”
It was a change of plans for the mercurial Musk who had earlier refused to consider manufacturing in India unless India lowered tariffs for imported Teslas to be sold in India.
Modi “really wants to do the right thing for India,” he said. Modi wants to make sure that the advantage from investments “accrues to India’s advantage, which is, you know, obviously, that’s the job,” he added. India has more “promise than any large country in the world,” he said.
Musk, who has been the frequent target of pitches from Indian officials to make electric cars locally, said he plans to visit the South Asian country in 2024.
If Tesla comes to India, it will be following the pattern of companies like Apple diversifying their manufacturing from China because of geopolitical and supply chain issues. Musk gushed about his “fantastic meeting with the Prime Minister” and declared, “I am a fan of Modi.” He said that Modi had invited him to visit India and that he would next year. Musk added that India has tremendous potential for “the three pillars of sustainable energy future” a goal of Modi. Musk said, “These were power generation using solar and wind energy, deploying batteries to store it, and having electric vehicles that run on it”.
“The interesting thing you will find is that this is a lower cost way to go as well,” he added.
Another Musk venture is Starlink which uses low orbit satellites to provide broadband internet connections.
He said that he was “hopefully looking forward” to bringing it to India.
On Jack Dorsey’s assertion
Asked about former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s assertion that the Indian government had asked the company to shut down a large number of accounts, Musk said bluntly that a company “doesn’t have a choice but to obey local governments”. “If we don’t obey local government laws, then we will get shut down. So the best we can do is really to hew close to the law in any given country,” he added.
It is impossible for us to do more than that (or) we will be blocked and our people will be arrested, Musk said.
He added that there are “different rules and regulations, different forms of government, so what we’ll do, the best to provide the freest speech that is possible under the law”.
Collaboration beyond Tesla
Musk’s ventures with India could extend beyond Tesla. In addition to electric vehicles, he told reporters he sees potential in the country for sustainable power generation through solar and wind, and energy storage in stationary batteries.
He intends to revive efforts to launch SpaceX’s Starlink internet for remote Indian villages that don’t have access to broadband. Musk last year said SpaceX was waiting for government approval to roll out services after setting up a wholly owned unit in India in 2021.
Musk has been scouting for the location of Tesla’s next factory. In January, Bloomberg News reported Tesla is close to a preliminary deal to set up a factory in Indonesia that would produce as many as 1 million cars a year.
Musk said, “We don’t want to jump the gun on an announcement, but I think it’s quite likely that there will be a significant investment, a relationship with India.”
