Industries Minister M B Patil on Friday invited billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to invest in Karnataka, describing the state as "the ideal destination" for electric carmaker Tesla.
Patil's invitation came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Musk, the Tesla chief executive, earlier this week. Tesla will be in India "as soon as humanly possible", Musk said after meeting Modi.
"Karnataka: The ideal destination for Tesla's expansion into India," Patil said in a social media post.
Not just Tesla, Karnataka is also wooing Starlink, a broadband internet service from SpaceX that Musk owns.
"As a progressive state & a thriving hub of innovation & technology, Karnataka stands ready to support and provide the necessary facilities for Tesla and other ventures of Elon Musk, including Starlink," Patil said, adding that Karnataka is focused on being the hub for technology and manufacturing 5.0 to "propel" the state for the next two decades.
"If Tesla considers setting up a plant in India, Karnataka, with its great potential and capabilities, I must say is The Destination," Patil said.
In a separate statement, Patil said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has evinced interest in inviting Musk to invest in Karnataka.
Karnataka has tried to get Musk's attention in the past.
In February 2021, the then Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa had said Tesla would set up its electric car manufacturing unit in Karnataka. A month before that, Tesla had registered its subsidiary Tesla India Motors and Energy Private Ltd at Bengaluru. Yediyurappa had then tweeted that the electric car giant would open its R&D unit in Bengaluru. The tweet was quickly deleted.
In January last year, the then Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani invited Musk to Karnataka just as Telangana, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu had done after the Tesla CEO tweeted that there were challenges in entering the country. Then, too, Nirani had described Karnataka as "an ideal destination" for a Tesla plant.
M B Patil, Industries Minister said, "As a progressive state & a thriving hub of innovation & technology, Karnataka stands ready to support and provide the necessary facilities for Tesla and other ventures of Elon Musk, including Starlink."