Sources Say Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s India Visit Has Been Postponed

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, was supposed to visit India on April 21 and 22, but he has postponed it, according to a report from CNBC-TV18 on Saturday, which cited several people with knowledge of the plan.

Musk was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss his intentions to join the Indian market.

The visit was scheduled to coincide with Musk’s important conference call to address issues about Tesla’s first-quarter performance on April 23 in the United States, sources claimed, but the precise reasons for the delay are yet unknown.

Musk expressed his excitement about seeing PM Modi on the social media site X on April 10. The Indian government announced a new policy on electric vehicle production only a few weeks before to the scheduled visit, which permits the government to provide tariff exemptions to electric car manufacturers that pledge to produce their vehicles in India.

Completely built units (CBUs) are now subject to customs duties ranging from 70% to 100%, depending on the engine size and the amount of the car’s cost, insurance, and freight (CIF). India has the highest import taxes on automobiles among the world’s major nations.

According to prior reports, Musk was expected to outline a plan for a 20–30 billion dollar investment in India. There was a potential, nevertheless, that this visit might not result in the Starlink agreement.

The prime minister was questioned over Musk’s claim that he was a “Modi fan” in an interview with news agency ANI. “Well, it’s one thing to argue that Elon Musk supports Modi; in essence, he is an advocate for India. And I recently got to know him. That isn’t how it is,” Modi said.

Modi claimed to have met Musk twice before, the most recent time being on his state visit to the US last year. The first meeting occurred during a factory tour in 2015. He recalled the 2015 plant visit and said the Tesla CEO had canceled their prearranged meeting.

“He took me around his whole factory. And it was from him that I deduced his vision. I just traveled there (to the US in 2023) and reconnected with him. And now he’s going to visit India,” the prime minister said to ANI.

Musk had met Modi in June of last year, when the prime minister was visiting the US. The Tesla CEO then expressed confidence that the business would soon join the Indian market and said that he wanted to visit India in 2024.