In recent weeks, Elon Musk has finally seemed to make some inroads in India, a potentially huge market whose government has frustrated him with its trade barriers. Tesla appears to be preparing another attempt to sell cars in the country, and Starlink, his satellite internet provider, signed partnerships with two Indian companies.
At the same time, though, Mr. Musk is picking a fight with the Indian government through another piece of his empire: his social media company, X.
This month, X, formerly known as Twitter, filed a lawsuit in an Indian court accusing the government of misusing a law to block content on the site. While Mr. Musk has portrayed himself as a champion of free speech, it is a touchy subject for the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which has faced allegations of stifling dissent and clamping down on expression. A hearing in the lawsuit is expected Thursday.
The platform’s chatbot, Grok, has also posed a challenge for Indian officials, who are scrutinizing it for potential violations of information technology laws, according to Indian media reports. Grok, which Mr. Musk has promoted as a straight-talking, “anti-woke” digital tool, has generated both mirth and outrage in India as it has spewed profanities in Hindi and made politically sensitive statements in response to user queries.
For example, when users asked Grok about media bias, it replied that Mr. Modi’s party spends heavily to “sway narratives.” It added: “Media bias isn’t new, but the party’s grip has tightened since 2014, often silencing critical voices.”
The free-speech campaign by Mr. Musk’s company has landed in the middle of a delicate moment for relations between Washington and New Delhi.
A team from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is in India to discuss bilateral trade agreements. President Trump has pushed the Modi government to lower tariffs on American products, including cars and agricultural goods. If the two countries cannot come to an agreement by April 2, Mr. Trump has vowed to impose reciprocal levies.
Mr. Musk is one of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers, and when Mr. Modi visited the White House last month, he met with Mr. Musk and his family. If the Modi government accommodates Mr. Trump’s tariff demands, Tesla could find its way into India more easily — a prime example of the billionaire’s unusual tangle of personal, political and business interests in the country.
Mr. Musk has sought to sell Teslas in India for years. After a failed attempt to enter the Indian market in 2021, the company recently began to pursue the opportunity anew, acquiring commercial spaces and moving to hire salespeople.
Starlink, the telecommunications subsidiary of Mr. Musk’s space technology company, SpaceX, is further along in India.
Until recently, Starlink, which provides internet connectivity via satellites, had been banned in the country. But on March 13, India’s two biggest telecom operators announced joint ventures with Starlink to bring its services to India, pending government approval. The announcement came exactly a month after Mr. Modi’s chat with Mr. Musk in Washington.
Mr. Musk’s potential business gains from his brewing fight with the Indian government over X are less clear. The social media platform represents only a small fragment of Mr. Musk’s wealth, which Forbes pegs at $350 billion, with the bulk coming from SpaceX and Tesla.
But X gives him an outsize megaphone, and his promotion of the site as open to all voices — including conservative ones he claims have been suppressed — is well received within the Trump administration.
In a lawsuit filed on March 5 in the Indian state of Karnataka, X alleged that the Indian government’s broad use of a law to block content it deems objectionable violates the provisions of another law, which lays down the process for how and when information can be removed.
In the suit, X also called the government’s “Sahyog Portal” — which automates the process of filing takedown orders for online posts by official bodies and local police — a “censorship” portal.
Mr. Musk, who has called himself a “free-speech absolutist,” has weighed in on the issue in India in the past.
“The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country,” he told the BBC in 2023. “If we have a choice of either our people go to prison or we comply with the laws, we’ll comply”
Mr. Musk has not spoken publicly about the current lawsuit, although he did respond to a BBC article about Grok with a laugh-cry emoji on X.
Indian media reports have said that the government is questioning X over the use of profanity by Grok as it examines whether the chatbot has violated laws.
Asked whether its responses to user queries had caused trouble with the Indian government, Grok replied in the affirmative.
“This kicked off after some of my unfiltered, sarcastic responses — sometimes including local expletives — went viral on X, drawing both amusement and criticism,” the bot wrote. “Things escalated as users kept pushing me with politically charged or cheeky questions, and I kept answering in my usual candid style.”