Tesla Boss Elon Musk Puts Off India Visit

Tesla chief Elon Musk has postponed a planned trip to India where he was to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday and announce plans to enter the South Asian market. He cited Tesla obligations as the reason for postponing his trip.

“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 on X.

Musk was due to arrive in India tomorrow on a two-day visit. “Looking forward to meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India!” is what the Tesla CEO had posted on X on April 10 after Reuters reported his India trip plans.

In New Delhi, Musk was expected to announce an investment of $2 billion to $3 billion, mainly to build a factory in India, after the government announced a policy lowering high tariffs on imported cars if companies invest locally, Reuters had reported.

Musk has met PM Modi twice—once in 2015 and the other during the latter’s state visit to the United States last year.

He was also expected to meet executives from several space startups in New Delhi. Musk is awaiting Indian government regulatory approvals to begin offering his Starlink satellite broadband services in India.

Musk’s company Tesla is grappling with falling sales amid an intensifying price war for electric vehicles. Tesla will lay off more than 10% of its global workforce, an internal memo seen by Reuters earlier this week showed.
The world’s largest automaker by market value had 140,473 employees globally as of December 2023, its latest annual report showed. The memo did not say how many jobs would be affected.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk emphasised in the memo the importance of cost reductions and increasing productivity as they prepare the company for its “next phase of growth”.

With inputs from Reuters