Billionaire Elon Musk, who is still toying with the idea to establish a Tesla factory in India, is in early talks with South Arabia to build a new EV manufacturing facility there, a report claimed on Monday. The Tesla CEO, however, denied any such talks.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources, Saudi Arabia is in talks with Tesla about setting up a manufacturing facility in the country.
This is part of an ambitious push by the oil-rich nation “to secure metals needed for electric vehicles and help diversify its economy away from oil”.
However, any deal would need to overcome hurdles, including Musk’s contentious relationship with the Saudis, the report added.
Musk reached to the report in a post, saying “yet another utterly false article from WSJ”.
They had declined to take Tesla private back in 2018 and the country has a majority stake in rival EV maker Lucid Motors.
According to the report, much of the talks seem to focus on Saudi Arabia’s desire for Tesla’s help securing more cobalt from Africa..
“Kingdom is trying to boost foreign investment but has contentious history with Elon Musk,” the report mentioned.
Tesla, Musk or Saudi Arabia did not comment on the report.
In 2018, after his controversial tweet about taking Tesla “private," Musk had said that he met with Saudi Arabia sovereign fund representatives to discuss the electric carmaker's possible exit from the stock market.
Musk said in a statement posted on the Tesla website that the Saudi sovereign fund had first contacted him "at the beginning of 2017 to express (their) interest because of the important need to diversify away from oil".
The Saudi sovereign fund then owned about 5 per cent of the outstanding Tesla shares.
