Last Updated: June 21, 2023, 13:01 IST
New York, United States of America (USA)
Elon Musk said Twitter did not have a choice but to obey the local laws. (File image)
Elon Musk said one cannot apply America everywhere on Earth and added ‘if we don’t obey local laws then we will get shut down’
Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk hit out at Jack Dorsey’s claims of Indian government pressuring the micro-blogging platform during the farmers’ protest in 2021-21 and said that the social media platform did not have a choice but to obey the laws made by local governments.
Rejecting Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s claims, Musk, who last year bought Twitter for USD 44 billion, said one cannot apply America everywhere.
“We cannot apply America to Earth. Twitter does not have a choice but to obey the local government. If we don’t obey local laws then we will get shut down,” Musk told India Today.
To my ques on @jack‘s remarks on India, @elonmusk -We cannot apply America to Earth.Twitter didn’t have a choice but to obey local govts. If we don’t obey local laws then we will get shut down.We will do our best to provide the freest speech that is possible under the rule pic.twitter.com/n8NvWv436r— Geeta Mohan گیتا موہن गीता मोहन (@Geeta_Mohan) June 20, 2023
“We will do our best to provide the freest speech that is possible under the rule,” he added.
Elon Musk gave the statement on the day he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York on Tuesday.
PM Modi tweeted about the meeting saying he had multifaceted conversations on issues ranging from energy to spirituality. “Great meeting you, Elon Musk. We had multifaceted conversations on issues ranging from energy to spirituality,” Modi said in the tweet.
The meeting comes days after Jack Dorsey made sensational allegations that the Indian government threatened to shut down the social media platform for not complying with content takedown orders during a 2020-2021 farmers’ protest.
Dorsey claimed the Indian government threatened to shut Twitter down unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts during the farmers’ protest against the Centre’s agri laws, an accusation Union Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar dismissed as an “outright lie”.
BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya also came down heavily on Dorsey, saying the social media company was in violation of laws between 2020-2022 when he was at the helm of affairs.
Meanwhile, after meeting Modi, Elon Musk said Tesla is looking to make a significant investment in India and said he saw India as holding more promise than any other large country around the globe. He also said he plans to visit India in 2024.
“I am confident that Tesla will be in India and we will do so as soon as humanly possible,” Musk told reporters after the meeting. “We don’t want to jump the gun on an announcement, but I think it’s quite likely that it will be a significant investment, a relationship with India.”
Calling himself “a fan” of Modi, Musk said the Indian prime minister cares about India because he is pursuing us to make a significant investment in India.
“India has more promise than any large country in the world. He (PM Modi) really cares about India as he’s pushing us to make significant investments in India. I am a fan of Modi. It was a fantastic meeting and I like him quite a lot,” he added.
