Elon Musk has finally caused some violations in India in recent weeks, a potentially huge market whose government has frustrated him with its trade barriers. Tesla appears to be preparing for another attempt to sell cars in the country, with his satellite internet provider Starlink signing a partnership with two Indian companies.
Meanwhile, Mr. Musk is fighting the Indian government through another part of his empire: his social media company X.
This month, X (formerly Twitter) filed a lawsuit in Indian courts accusing the government of abusing the law to block content on the website. Although Mr. Musk has portrayed himself as a champion of freedom of speech, it is a sensitive subject for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration, who faces allegations of stifling dissidents and expressing his speech. A hearing is expected in the lawsuit on Thursday.
According to Indian media reports, the platform’s chatbot Grok also raised a challenge for Indian officials who are reviewing their potential violations of information technology laws. Grok, advocated by Mr. Musk as an outspoken “counter-pull” digital tool, has aroused my joy and anger in India as it has spewed blasphemy in Hindi and made politically sensitive statements about user queries.
For example, when the user asked Grok about media bias, it replied that Mr. Modi's party spent a lot of money on “shocking narratives.” It added: “Media bias is not new, but the party’s grip has tightened since 2014, often silenced critical voices.”
Musk's Company's free speech movement has fallen into a delicate moment in the relationship between Washington and New Delhi.
A team from the Office of the United States Trade Representative discusses bilateral trade agreements in India. President Trump has prompted the Modi administration to lower tariffs on U.S. products, including automobiles and agricultural products. If the two countries cannot reach an agreement by April 2, then Mr. Trump vows to impose reciprocal taxes.
Mr. Musk is one of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers, and he met with Mr. Musk and his family when Modi visited the White House last month. If the Modi administration adapts to Mr. Trump’s tariff requirements, Tesla could find its way into India more easily, a classic example of the entanglement of unusual personal, political and commercial interests of billionaires in the country.
Mr. Musk has tried to sell Tesla in India for many years. After a failed attempt to enter the Indian market in 2021, the company has recently begun to re-seek opportunities to acquire commercial space and move sales and sales staff.
Mr. Musk is a telecom subsidiary of SpaceX, a space technology company, and Starlink is getting further and further away in India.
Until recently, Starlink, which provides internet connection via satellite, has been banned in the country. But on March 13, India’s two largest telecom operators announced a joint venture with Starlink to bring their services to India, pending government approval. The announcement happened to be just one month after Mr. Modi chatted with Mr. Musk of Washington.
The potential business Mr Musk has gained from his fight against the Indian government on brewing on X is not very clear. The social media platform represents only a small part of Mr. Musk's wealth, with Forbes nailing it to $350 billion, a large number from SpaceX and Tesla.
But X gave him a super-large loudspeaker, and his promotion to the site was open to all voices (including conservative figures he claimed had been silenced) and was welcomed by the Trump administration.
In a lawsuit filed on March 5 in Karnataka, India, X claimed that the Indian government used extensively to prevent content it considered offensive to violate the provisions of another law, laying the foundation for the process of deleting information and when it could be deleted.
In the lawsuit, X also called the government's “Sahyog Portal” a process of “automating the orders of online posts by official agencies and local police officers” – a “censorship” portal.
Mr. Musk calls himself a “authoritarian of free speech” and has aggravated this issue in the past on India's issues.
He told the BBC in 2023: “The rules that may appear on social media in India are very strict and we cannot go beyond the laws of a country.
Mr Musk has not spoken publicly about the current lawsuit, although he did respond to the BBC article about Grok and posted a laughing emoji on X.
Indian media reports that the government is questioning X's use of Grok as it examines whether the chatbot violates it law.
When asked if his reaction to user queries was causing trouble with the Indian government, Groke answered in affirmation.
“It started after my unfiltered ironic reaction (sometimes including local sentencing) spread on X, causing entertainment and criticism,” the bot wrote. “Things escalated as users keep pushing me for my political charging or cheeky questions, and I've been answering in my usual candid style.”
