Tesla Officially Starts Hiring in India

Tesla has officially begun hiring in India, signalling its intent to enter the Indian market following a recent meeting between CEO Elon Musk and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the United States. 

The company has posted job openings for 13 positions, which include customer-facing and back-end roles, as detailed on the company’s website and its official LinkedIn page.

The available positions encompass various roles such as service technician, customer engagement manager, and delivery operations specialist. These seem to hint at the company’s probable expansion in India in the coming years.

This recruitment marks a significant step for Tesla, which has had an on-and-off presence in India due to concerns over high import duties.

India recently reduced the basic customs duty on high-end vehicles priced above $40,000 from 110% to 70%, which may have influenced Tesla’s decision to explore the market further. 

Despite the Indian electric vehicle market being smaller than China’s, with nearly 1,00,000 electric cars sold last year compared to China’s 11 million, it presents an opportunity for Tesla amid declining sales globally.

Musk and PM Modi discussed topics related to technology and mobility, further fueling speculation about Tesla’s expansion plans in India. This hiring initiative follows previous efforts by Tesla to negotiate lower import taxes as a prerequisite for significant investment in the country.

At the AI Action Summit in Paris, PM Modi highlighted India’s AI progress and sent a clear message to the world: Invest in the country’s AI future.

“India is making remarkable strides in AI, leveraging it for public good. We urge the world to come and invest in our nation and bet on our Yuva Shakti!” he wrote on X.

That said, he also urged the need for upskilling, which was also reflected in the Union Budget 2025. 

The government allocated ₹500 crore to set up a Centre of Excellence in AI for education, which will use AI to improve India’s education system.

Moreover, Musk’s xAI also released its latest AI model, Grok 3, on Tuesday. He called it “the smartest AI on Earth”. 

Users across social media, like scale.ai CEO Alexandr Wang, Replit CEO Amjad Masad and podcaster Lex Fridman are discussing Grok 3’s capabilities, given that it has been trained on 1,00,000 NVIDIA GPUs and has ten times more computing power than its predecessor.