Elon Musk postpones India trip due to ‘heavy Tesla obligations’?
The highly anticipated visit of Elon Musk, the CEO of electric vehicle giant Tesla, to India has been temporarily put on hold. Elon Musk was scheduled to meet PM Modi on April 22 in New Delhi. Though Musk excuses his “very high Tesla obligations”, the people who know believe that Musk’s Satellite venture Starlink’s operations are not in tally with Indian norms and Tesla’s Indian partner talks with Mukesh Ambani are still in primitive stage might be the reasons for putting hold the India visit which announced on April 10.
“Unfortunately, very heavy Tesla obligations require that the visit to India be delayed, but I do very much look forward to visiting later this year,” Musk said in a post on social media platform X, on April 20. Earlier this month Elon Musk on the X platform wrote, “Looking forward to meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India,” on April 10, 2024.
Musk and PM Modi last met in New York in June and Tesla has continued for months lobbying India to lower import taxes on electric vehicles while it weighed up a factory in the country. Tesla has been on the hunt for a local partner to establish an EV unit in India. Tesla is in talks with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (RIL) to form a joint venture to set up an EV facility in the country and the talks are still in the primitive stage. Musk was planning to invest three billion dollars in the EV plant.
Though Elon Musk is publicly talking about setting up a Tesla plant, he also plans to get license in the Indian Telecom sector for this Satellite venture Starlink. According to top Indian officials, Starlink’s proposals in getting spectrum are not in tally with India’s norms and rules. Elon Musk lobbies for free spectrum first and then pay on revenue revenue-sharing basis and wants to avoid an auction, which is basically against Indian norms. The license application of Musk’s satellite venture Starlink is under process, and the Indian government is examining the security aspects.
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