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Your right to know Tuesday, May 21, 2024


“I’m a fan of Modi”: Elon Musk after meeting PM

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Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla, said on Wednesday that he admires Prime Minister Narendra Modi because he “really wants to do the right thing for India.”

Musk told reporters after meeting Modi in New York that the Indian prime minister genuinely cares about India and is pressing Tesla to make major investments in India.

Speaking on PM Modi’s leadership role in making technology inclusive so that digital infrastructure can be created, he said, “I can say he really wants to do the right thing for India. He wants to be open, he wants to be supportive of new companies, obviously, but at the same time, make sure it accrues to India’s advantage, which is obviously that’s the job I’m saying. I am a fan of Modi,” to ANI.

In response to PM Modi’s tweet regarding his meeting with business leaders in the US, Musk tweeted, “It was an honor to meet again.”

“In the USA, I will also get the opportunity to meet business leaders, interact with the Indian community and meet thought leaders from different walks of life. We seek to deepen India-USA ties in key sectors like trade, commerce, innovation, technology and other such areas,” tweeted PM Modi.

He also divulged plans to visit India anytime soon. On being questioned over did PM Modi extended an invitation to him, he said, “He did. And yes, I’m tentatively planning to visit India again next year. I’m looking forward.”

Notably, this is the first meeting between PM Modi and Musk after he became the owner of Twitter. PM Modi earlier met Musk in 2015 during a visit to Tesla Motors factory in California.

“Well, I’m actually incredibly excited about the future of India. I think India has more promise than any large country in the world,” told Musk to ANI.

Speaking about the takeaways from the meeting, Musk noted that PM Modi really cares about India because he is pushing them to make significant investments in India, which is something that they intend to do and are just trying to figure out the right timing.

Earlier, during an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Musk was asked if the automaker was interested in the Indian market. “Absolutely,” he replied.

He added that Tesla will likely finalise a location to set up its India factory by the end of this year.

“It was a fantastic meeting with the Prime Minister and I like him quite a lot. He visited our Tesla Fremont Factory several years ago, and so we’ve now known each other for a while, said Musk after meeting PM Modi today.

Speaking about future plans and investment in India, he said, “Yeah, well, I think there’s a tremendous amount of potential for all three pillars of the sustainable energy future. The three pillars are sustainable energy generation through solar and wind, primarily. And obviously, India is great for solar. And the amount of land area you actually need to generate enough electricity to power India is very small. I believe it’d be probably one or 2 per cent of the land area of India. So it’s very doable. And then you need to pair that with stationary battery packs because the sun doesn’t shine at night. And then you need electric vehicles, and then you have a sustainable energy future. And I think the interesting thing people will find is that this is a lower cost way to go as well.”

Musk also said that he is looking forward to bringing Starlink to India as well.

“The Starlink Internet, which I think can be incredibly helpful for sort of remote or rural villages where they perhaps either may have no access to the Internet or the Internet is very expensive and slow,” he said.

Significantly, this meeting takes place shortly after former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claimed that the Indian government, led by the BJP, had threatened to shut down Twitter in India and conduct raids on its employees during the peak of the farmers’ protest in 2020.

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