Elon Musk reacts to Jack Dorsey’s claims of being threatened by Indian govt

Tesla CEO and current Twitter chief Elon Musk has said that the microblogging platform does not have a choice but to obey the local laws of the government. He was responding to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s claim of being threatened by the Indian Government to block accounts of those tweeting about the farmers’ protests. Speaking to India Today’s Foreign Affairs Editor Geeta Mohan, Musk, on Tuesday, June 20, said, “Twitter doesn’t have a choice but to obey local governments. If we don’t obey local government laws, then we will get shut down.” 

Musk, who met the Indian PM Narendra Modi earlier, said that the best they could do was to follow the laws in any given country. “There are different rules and regulations for different forms of governments, and we will do our best to provide the freest speech that is possible under the law,” he said.

Earlier this month, Jack Dorsey claimed that while he was the CEO of Twitter, he had received requests from the Government of India to block accounts of those covering the farmers’ protests. “It manifested in ways such as: ‘We will shut Twitter down in India’, which is a very large market for us; ‘We will raid the homes of your employees’, which they did; and this is India, a democratic country,” Dorsey said.

Musk, following his meeting with PM Modi, told reporters that he was a fan of the Indian PM and planned to visit the country next year. Musk, who is yet to bring his electric car maker Tesla to India, said the country was great for solar energy investment. "I am a fan of Modi. India is great for solar energy investment,” he added.