Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday said he is confident that Tesla will be in India as soon as humanly possible. These comments come after Musk met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York.
"I would like to thank the Prime Minister for his support and hopefully we will be able to announce something in the not-so-distant future. We don't want to jump the gun on an announcement but I think it is quite likely that there will be a significant investment in our relationship with India," Musk said, calling his meeting with PM Modi as "excellent".
The world's richest man said he is incredibly excited about the future of India. "I think India has more promise than any large country in the world," he said.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi really cares about India because he is pushing us to make significant investments in India which is something that we intend to do," the Tesla CEO said, calling himself a "fan of Modi".
"In a nutshell, it was a fantastic meeting with the Prime Minister. I like him quite a lot. He visited our factory several years ago. We've kind of known each other for a while," he added.
"He really wants to do the right thing for India. He wants to open, he wants to be supportive of new companies and at the same time make sure it accrues to India's advantage which is his job," Musk explained.
The billionaire said India has a potential for sustainable energy generation through wind and solar primarily. India is great for solar, he said.
"I think the amount of land area you actually need to generate electricity to power India is very small. It is probably 1-2% of the land area of India. So it's very doable. Then you need to pair that with stationary battery packs and then you need electric vehicles and then you have a sustainable energy future. This is a lower-cost way to go and that may surprise people," Musk explained.
Musk said that Modi invited him to visit India. "I am planning to visit India next year," he said.
On microblogging platform Twitter's tussle with the Indian government, Musk said that Twitter doesn't have a choice but to obey local governments. "If we don't obey local government laws, then we will get shut down. The best we can do is really to hew close to the law in any given country," Musk said.
"But it is impossible for us to do more than that or we will be blocked or arrested. One cannot just apply America to Earth because there are different rules and regulations and different forms of governments," he said.
"We will do the best to provide the freest speech that is possible under the law," Musk added.
Following his meeting with Musk, PM Modi tweeted, "Great meeting you today @elonmusk! We had multifaceted conversations on issues ranging from energy to spirituality."
