India 'Shocked' After Musk Cancels Trip, Then Makes Surprise Visit to China

Indian media expressed surprise and anger this week when Tesla CEO Elon Musk canceled a planned trip to India and made a surprise visit to China instead. The Indian opposition, hoping to make progress against the ruling BJP party in the long parliamentary election currently underway, leaped at the opportunity to claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's policies are driving foreign investors away. Musk was supposed to visit New Delhi last week to meet with Modi, announce a new $3 billion Tesla automobile factory, and discuss plans for importing Teslas into India. As recently as April 10, Musk said he was looking forward to the trip - but he abruptly canceled the trip, explaining in a terse April 20 post on his social media site X that "Very heavy Tesla obligations require that the visit to India be delayed, but I do look forward to visiting later this year." Musk said on April 20 he looks forward to visiting India later this year, but the Indian government has not commented on his trip cancellation or China visit. If Musk had gone through with his original plans and announced a multi-billion-dollar investment in India after meeting with Modi, it would clearly have boosted Modi and his party during the parliamentary election, which began on April 19 and will continue until mid-May. The election was broken into multiple phases to account for India's huge size and population. This state of anxiety gave the Chinese Communist Party even more leverage over Musk and the Party was eager to use it, viewing Musk as "a welcome antidote to the tough talk from U.S. officials, which played out most recently during a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken." Musk's change in plans marks a fresh setback for long-running negotiations between India and the electric-car pioneer for its entry to the world's third-largest automotive market, and prompts questions over Tesla's India plans.