American billionaire Elon Musk has postponed his India visit citing work commitments, and said he would make it later this year. Musk was scheduled to meet PM Modi during his visit and announce investments worth billions of dollars around a greenfield electric car project for Tesla, apart from satcom venture Starlink.
Musk, who had just a few days ago announced his visit through a post on his X handle, informed on the same platform about the latest development. “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,” he said. It is now expected that Musk will visit after elections.
Asked about Musk’s decision, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “When big companies show interest to come to India, we will do everything to make it attractive for them to come and invest. In that process, if there is anything to discuss, we will certainly discuss. But whatever we have done, we have done it through policy.”
Reacting to Musk’s proposed visit, PM Modi had said in a recent interview that he welcomed MNCs to India as they had the potential to generate jobs for locals. The PM said he had met Musk recently in the US, and before that in 2015, and added that India’s potential in electric vehicles is attracting new companies to the country.
Announcing a project in a fast-developing market in India is equally important for Musk too. He is expected to face tough questions from analysts about falling sales, rising competition from Chinese EV makers (such as BYD) and the fate of key future Tesla products.
The deferment of his visit will come as a disappointment to many as Musk - who runs several multi-billion-dollar enterprises such as Tesla, social media platform X (formerly Twitter), rocket and space company SpaceX, brain chip startup Neuralink, and tunnelling provider Boring Co - was expected to make announcements around the Tesla project.
Tesla, which has been looking at India for the past few years as a business opportunity, is expected to avail the policy and work towards investing between $2 and $3 billion in the country. The company had earlier told govt that it wants to make a budget EV in India, likely to be priced at Rs 25-30,00,000, and this would also be exported across some regions. And before the factory came up, the company was expected to import some of its models to the country under a new subsidised import duty regime that has been promised in the new EV policy.
Musk’s visit was also expected to hasten approval for his satcom venture Starlink which has been stuck in regulatory hurdles for the past three-and-a-half years.
