Amid Trump-Musk fallout, will Tesla's India story run out of charge before it begins?
The spectacular, and very public, break in their relationship has put the spotlight squarely on Musk's companies' expansion plans, since many had predicted that with Trump on his side, the billionaire stood to benefit economically across multiple regions globally. Many saw that cutting Musk's companies a favourable deal could be used as a potential ploy by foreign governments to placate Trump, who has wreaked havoc over the global trading ecosystem. Now though, there are question marks.
Case in point is one of Musk's most successful endeavours, his electric mobility giant Tesla. In India, the company has flip-flopped on whether it will manufacture in the country, but had been moving to set up retail operations. But the feud between Trump and Musk has had a significant bearing on Tesla.
Since the two have had a fallout, the company's stock has taken a beating, falling close to 15%, and erasing around $150 billion in market value. With electric vehicle sales tempering globally and the emergence of rivals like China's BYD, Tesla's dominance in the sector was already under attack. And now, without the most influential American's political backing behind its founder gone, Tesla's expansion plans could take a back seat, or at least face some turbulence.
What adds to the misery is not just Trump publicly admonishing Musk publicly, and vice versa, but also that the US President has suggested he could terminate government contracts and subsidies given to Musk's companies.
Earlier this week, Union Heavy Industries Minister H D Kumaraswamy said that Tesla was not interested in manufacturing in India, but was looking to open retail showrooms in the country. He added that global EV makers like Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen-Škoda, Hyundai and Kia have shown interest in applying under the ministry's flagship Scheme to Promote Manufacturing of Electric Passenger Cars in India, notified in March last year.
An auto industry executive noted that with its stock taking a beating, and a reconciliation between Musk and Trump seeming unlikely, the company could find it difficult to tell its investors why it was pursuing setting shop in a market like India, where its vehicles may not garner mass appeal due to their high cost and India's relatively nascent EV market and infrastructure.
For long, India and Tesla have had a 'will they, won't they' dynamic to their relationship, which New Delhi had set to change, by making substantial policy manoeuvres to attract the EV major to its shores. Earlier, many believed the government's EV manufacturing scheme was envisaged to attract Tesla to manufacture in India, after it complained of high duties on car imports, which can go up to 110 per cent.
It is worth noting that Trump was not impressed by Tesla's India plans. In February, he had criticised Tesla's plan to expand in India, calling it 'unfair' to the US. 'Now, if (Tesla CEO Elon Musk) built the factory in India, that's okay, but that's unfair to us. It's very unfair,' he had said. Trump has since made similar objections to Apple's expansion plans in India.
Soumyarendra Barik is Special Correspondent with The Indian Express and reports on the intersection of technology, policy and society. With over five years of newsroom experience, he has reported on issues of gig workers' rights, privacy, India's prevalent digital divide and a range of other policy interventions that impact big tech companies. He once also tailed a food delivery worker for over 12 hours to quantify the amount of money they make, and the pain they go through while doing so. In his free time, he likes to nerd about watches, Formula 1 and football. ... Read More
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
17 minutes ago
- Time of India
Breaking news live updates, August 12: Rahul Gandhi lauds INDA bloc MPs for support in 'movement against vote theft'
00:17 (IST) Aug 12 US stocks are drifting around their record heights on Monday as Wall Street waits for an upcoming update on inflation. The S&P 500 fell 0.1% and is just below its all-time high set two weeks ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 171 points, or 0.4%, as of 2:30 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.1%, coming off its own record. The highlight of this week for Wall Street is likely to arrive on Tuesday, when the government will report how bad inflation was across the country in July. Economists expect it to show U.S. consumers had to pay prices for groceries, gasoline and other costs of living that were 2.8% higher in July from a year earlier, a slight acceleration from June's 2.7% inflation. Inflation has remained above 2%, even if it has improved substantially from its peak above 9% three years ago. And the worry is that President Donald Trump's tariffs could push it higher. That in turn is raising fears about a potential, worst-case scenario called 'stagflation' where the economy stagnates but inflation remains high. The Federal Reserve has no good tool to fix both at once, and it would need to concentrate on either the job market or inflation first. But helping one of those areas by moving interest rates would likely hurt the other. A top Fed official, Michelle Bowman, said on Saturday that she believes the job market is the bigger concern. She is still backing three cuts to interest rates by the Fed this year following this month's stunning, weaker-than-expected report on the U.S. job market. Trump himself has also been angrily calling for cuts to interest rates to support the economy. Other Fed officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, are more hesitant. Powell has said he wants to wait for more data about how Trump's tariffs are affecting inflation before the Fed makes its next move, and Tuesday's update on the consumer price index may offer a big clue about that. Strategists at Stifel are warning that stagflation may already be on the way, with spending by U.S. consumers slowing, and they warn that it could cause the U.S. economy to slow to a crawl by the second half of the year. That in turn could create a reckoning for investors after they sent stock prices soaring to records from their low point in April. 'Rate cuts cannot save an overvalued S&P 500,' according to the strategists, led by Thomas Carroll and Barry Bannister. One way companies can make their stock prices appear less expensive is to deliver bigger profits. Micron Technology climbed 3% Monday after raising its forecasts for profit and revenue in the current quarter, which will end later this month. The maker of memory for computers said it's benefiting from higher prices for its products. AMC Entertainment rose 2.9% to shave its loss for the year so far, which came into the day at 26.4% after it reported better results for the spring than analysts expected. The theater chain said moviegoers paid more for their tickets per person than ever before, while also spending more on food and drinks. TKO Group Holdings climbed 8.2% after reaching a deal to distribute the full slate of its 13 marquee UFC numbered events, along with 30 'Fight Nights' on the Paramount+ streaming platform. Paramount Skydance's stock fell 1.6%. Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices advanced after a U.S. government official confirmed that the two agreed to share 15% of their revenues from chip sales to China with the U.S. government. The two had said in July that Washington would allow them to resume sales of their advanced H20 and MI308 chips, which are used in artificial intelligence development, in China but didn't reveal the 15% cut. Nvidia added 0.2%, and AMD climbed 0.7%. On the losing side of Wall Street was after the AI application software company warned it may report an operating loss as large as $124.9 million for its first quarter. CEO Thomas Siebel called the first-quarter sales results 'completely unacceptable,' and its stock tumbled 25%. In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest movements across Europe and Asia. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.27%, where it was late Friday.
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
17 minutes ago
- First Post
'We'll see what happens': Trump dodges question on extending August 12 China tariff deadline
US President Donald Trump on Monday dodged a question about whether he would extend the August 12 deadline for imposing higher tariffs on Chinese goods, saying 'we'll see what happens' read more US President Donald Trump on Monday dodged a question about whether he would extend the August 12 deadline for imposing higher tariffs on Chinese goods, saying 'we'll see what happens,' while praising China for its cooperation in ongoing trade talks with the US. 'We've been dealing very nicely with China. As you have probably heard, they have tremendous tariffs that they're paying to the United States of America,' Reuters quoted Trump as saying at a news conference at the White House. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'They've been dealing quite nicely,' he said, adding that he had a good relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. A tariff truce between the US and China is set to expire on August 12, though the Trump administration has signaled the deadline could be extended. More from World PM Modi to visit China: Why the trip matters amid Trump's steep tariffs on India Without an extension, US tariffs on Chinese goods are expected to surge to 145%, while Chinese tariffs on American products could reach 125%. The two countries agreed to a 90-day pause in their trade dispute during talks in Geneva this May, allowing time for further negotiations. A follow-up meeting in Stockholm in late July ended without any announcement on extending the truce. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington is making progress and expressed optimism about reaching a deal with Beijing. With the clock ticking, Trump on Sunday night called on China to quadruple its purchases of American soybeans and noted that doing so would help reduce America's trade deficit with China. 'China is worried about its shortage of soybeans,' Trump wrote on Truth Social in a message directed to Xi Jinping, China's leader. 'Our great farmers produce the most robust soybeans,' he added. With inputs from agencies
News18
17 minutes ago
- News18
US Supreme Court Urged To Revisit 2015 Ruling Legalising Same-Sex Marriage
Curated By : Last Updated: August 12, 2025, 00:39 IST It remains uncertain whether the Supreme Court will take up the case (Pexels/Representative Image) The US Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage in 2015 following its landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. Now, nearly a decade after that historic decision, the nation's highest court is being urged to revisit the ruling. Kim Davis, a former county clerk from Kentucky, has submitted a petition asking the Court to consider granting her protection from personal liability under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, reported ABC . Davis made national headlines in 2015 when she was jailed for six days after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, citing her religious beliefs. At the time, she was the only official authorised under Kentucky law to issue marriage licenses in Rowan County. When she denied a marriage certificate to David Ermold and David Moore, a lower court ordered her to pay $100,000 in damages for infringing on their constitutional rights. Recommended Stories In her recent appeal to the Supreme Court, Davis is contesting the $100,000 jury verdict and is also seeking $260,000 in emotional damages and attorneys' fees. Her claims had previously been dismissed by lower courts. A federal appeals court panel earlier this year ruled against her, stating that the former clerk 'cannot raise the First Amendment as a defence because she is being held liable for state action, which the First Amendment does not protect." It remains uncertain whether the Supreme Court will take up the case. The justices are expected to consider if they will take the matter during a private conference at the end of September. Should the Court agree to hear the case, oral arguments would likely take place in the spring of 2026, with a final decision anticipated by the end of June. 'I'm hoping that we'll obviously get justice in this case for Kim Davis but that the religious accommodation that she obtained for all clerks," said Matt Staver, Davis' legal representative, in a statement to Scripps News . View All "Dragging Out War" Zelensky Eyes "Stronger Global Pressure" on Russia Ahead of Trump-Putin Meet Donald Trump Will Try To Get Back Territory For Ukraine In "Feel-out Meeting" With Putin In Alaska North Korea Slams US-South Korea Drills; Lukashenko Admits Kim's Troops Took Part in Ukraine War |4K Air India Crash Victims' Families Demand Immediate Release Of Flight Recorders, Hire Us based Lawyer "Road To Misery" IRGC Slams Trump-Backed Zangezur corridor, Iran to Hold Meet with Armenia | 4K View all Meanwhile, William Powell, attorney for David Ermold and David Moore, expressed confidence in the current legal outcome. In a statement to ABC , he noted, 'Not a single judge on the US Court of Appeals showed any interest in Davis' rehearing petition, and we are confident the Supreme Court will likewise agree that her arguments do not merit further attention." In her petition, Davis further argues that the Court should treat the issue of same-sex marriage similarly to how it addressed abortion in its 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. This is the first time that someone has challenged the same-sex marriage ruling after it was announced in 2015. News world US Supreme Court Urged To Revisit 2015 Ruling Legalising Same-Sex Marriage Read More
