During his visited to the United States, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi met Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc. & SpaceX; owner, CTO and chairman of Twitter. According to the official release, the PM appreciated Musk’s efforts at making technology accessible and affordable in various sectors.
PM Modi also invited Musk to explore opportunities in India for investments in electric mobility and rapidly expanding commercial space sector.
In a short interaction with the press after meeting PM Modi, Elon Musk said that he is planning to visit India next year. When asked about the launch of Tesla in India, he said, “I am confident that Tesla will be in India, and we will do so as soon as humanly possible.”
Regarding Tesla and investment in India, and meeting PM Modi, Musk said:
I would like to thank PM Modi for his support and hopefully, we will be able to announce something in the future.
India has more promise than any large country in the world. It is quite likely there will be a significant investment in India.
He (PM Modi) really cares about India as he’s pushing us to make significant investments in India. I am a fan of Modi. It was a fantastic meeting & I like him quite a lot.
Tesla coming to India has been in the news since 2017 as Musk said that he was in discussions with the government of India requesting temporary relief on import penalties/restrictions until a local factory is built. We will know more details on this when he visits India next year.
When asked about Jack Dorsey, and his controversial statement about the Indian government shutting down Twitter offices in India, Musk said:
Twitter does not have a choice but to obey local governments. If we don’t obey local government laws, we will get shut down so the best we can do is to work close to the law in any given country, it is impossible for us to do more than that. We will do our best to provide free speech that is possible under the law.