Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, SpaceX and owner of Twitter has again announced to enter India, a few months after he claimed to exit the Indian market without even starting domestic operations due to a heavy tax structure. The announcement was made after Elon Musk met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the United State and hearing PM Modi's "Make in India" pitch. The Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced a change of plans and said that his electric vehicle and battery company will now come to India "as soon as it is humanly possible".
"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," said Elon Musk. "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 really wants to do the right thing for India," he added.
Great meeting you today @elonmusk! We had multifaceted conversations on issues ranging from energy to spirituality. https://t.co/r0mzwNbTyN pic.twitter.com/IVwOy5SlMV
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 21, 2023
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. India has more "promise than any large country in the world," he said. Musk gushed about his "fantastic meeting with the Prime Minister" and declared, "I am a fan of Modi."
Elon Musk and PM Modi met earlier at the former's Freemont Tesla facility and the talks of the largest EV brand to enter India is rife ever since. In 2022, Elon Musk led Tesla established an office in Bengaluru. While the initial plan was to import vehicles through the CBU route, the cost of vehicles was coming to be high due to import duty.
He urged the govt to reduce tax structure, but Nitin Gadkari said Elon Musk will not get and special priviledge and he has to make cars in India to enjoy lower tax slabs. After failed negotiations with the Indian govt, Elon Musk decided to wrap up India ops, without actually starting business in the country.
Now, after meeting PM Modi in the US, Elon Musk has once again announced to bring the EV brand Tesla to India, by next year. It will be interesting to see if the cars will come through the CBU route or Musk will locally assemble the vehicles in India.
