Elon Musk Meets OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal, Other Indian Business Executives

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk met India’s top founders and business executives at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas. 

The attendees included OYO founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Raman, Essar Capital’s Prashant Ruia, Kotak811 co-head Jay Kotak, Aryaman Birla of Aditya Birla Management Corporation, author Amish Tripathi, Akshay Chatruvedi, founder and CEO of Leverage.biz. among others. 

Led by India Global Forum (IGF) founder Manoj Ladwa, the delegation engaged with Musk and toured the SpaceX facility. 

In a statement, the IGF said that the meeting saw the entrepreneurs discuss opportunities for collaboration in areas such as technology, space, AI and India’s growing role in the global innovation landscape.

During a moderated discussion, Musk emphasised the potential for deeper collaboration between India and the US and lowering trade barriers to increase commerce between the two countries. 

Speaking about India, Musk said, “India is one of the ancient civilizations and a very great and very complex one”.

Commenting on the event, Ladwa said, “This event underscores the growing importance of collaboration between India and global pioneers in shaping a sustainable and technology-driven future…. This moment underscores the need for collaboration, bold ideas, and shared purpose. I believe India’s rise presents limitless opportunities, and this meeting signifies the potential for powerful partnerships.” 

Attendees like Agarwal and Tripathi took to X to describe the meeting and the discussions that took place. 

“Had the opportunity to be among the Indian founders hosted by  @Elonmusk led by  @IGFupdates . Elon is by far doing the most to evolve human kind or as Peter Thiel says has us closest to getting flying cars,” said OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal. 

This comes nearly a year after Musk was supposed to meet founders of Indian startups during his visit to the country in April last year. The SpaceX founder later shelved the trip. 

The development comes at a time when Musk’s Starlink is looking to launch its services in India. However, the satellite broadband provider has been caught on the wrong foot in the country.

Recently, the Centre launched a high-level probe into how Starlink’s devices found their way into the hands of drug smugglers and insurgents. This came after Indian security forces last year seized Starlink devices from insurgency-torn Manipur. In a separate incident, smugglers brought drugs worth $4.5 Bn into the Indian waters via sea using Starlink devices.