The Markets Are Still Struggling To Find A Bottom
The markets are still struggling to find their bottom and the small points of resistance are not yet convincing enough to suggest a turnaround
On Episode 518 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Bjarne Schieldrop, Chief Commodities Analyst of SEB Research. We also feature an excerpt from our interview with Noshir Kaka, Senior Partner, Mumbai at McKinsey & Company from the recent Nasscom Technology Leadership Forum 2025 in Mumbai.
(00:00) Stories of the Day
(01:29) The markets are still struggling to find a bottom
(02:58) RBI reduces risk weightages for banks, possibly to drive retail demand revival
(04:19) How natural gas demand for Europe is driving a potential Russia-Ukraine peace deal
(04:53) BP to increase oil & gas investment to $10 billion per year in return to fossil fuel focus
(16:27) The EU wants India to open up too, just says it more nicely
(19:15) Where is AI taking us and Indian enterprises?
(30:01) Tesla sales fall 45% in Europe as scepticism about an early India success rises
NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
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Good morning. It's Thursday, the 27th of February, and this is Govindraj Ethiraj, Headquarter and Broadcasting and Streaming, as always, from Mumbai, India's financial capital. We are back after a stock market holiday, which is also a day we usually take a break.
It's also a particularly warm Mumbai, close to six degrees above normal, with temperatures on Wednesday peaking at 38.5 degrees Celsius, which is, of course, better than Tuesday, which was 38.7 degrees Celsius. And the top themes and stories.
The stock markets are still struggling to find a bottom.
The Reserve Bank of India reduces risk weightages for banks, possibly to drive back retail demand.
BP to increase oil and gas investment to $10 billion per year in a return to fossil fuel focus.
How natural gas demand for Europe is driving a potential Russia-Ukraine peace deal.
Tesla sales fall 45% in Europe as scepticism about an early India success also rises.
The European Union wants India to open up too. It just says it more nicely.
And where is artificial intelligence taking us and the opportunities and threats ahead for Indian enterprises?
The Struggle Continues
The stock markets are still struggling to find their bottom, and the small points of resistance are not yet convincing enough to suggest a turnaround, though the positive brokerage calls, as we've pointed out, have begun. Foreign portfolio investor selling is still strong, and there are several other factors driving that, China being one factor, which is pulling capital away. Remember, the opposite of that happened a year ago.
Now, Wednesday was a market holiday, and that's also why we did not have an addition. On Tuesday, the 30-share Sensex halted its five-day losing run and rose 147 points to close at 74,602. Remember, the Sensex lost almost 1,540 points in the preceding five trading sessions.
The NSE Nifty 50, on the other hand, was down about 6 points to close at 22,547. So, all in all, it's still not a real turnaround in the markets. Among the broader markets, the Nifty Mid Cap 100 and the Nifty Small Cap 100 indices were also down 0.6 and 0.5%, roughly, and respectively. Meanwhile, if you're still tracking this, gold prices were holding steady on Wednesday, after a 2% decline in the previous session, as people stayed, or rather, traders stayed focused on the latest tariff salvos from the United States President Donald Trump. Spot gold was hovering around $2,916 an ounce on Wednesday, after hitting a one-week low on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Gold had earlier hit a record high of $2,956 an ounce on Monday.
The Reserve Bank Reduces Risk Weightages
Perhaps this is the sign that we need borrowing-induced demand to fuel economic growth, the lack or slowing of which has obviously caused a demand contraction, particularly in consumer products as well as for services. The Reserve Bank of India has partially reversed tighter rules for bank loans to small borrowers and non-bank lenders, according to two separate circulars issued on Tuesday, according to Reuters, adding that that reversal follows the central bank's decision to defer proposals to increase the capital that banks set aside for new project loans and liquidity they hold for digital deposits.
The Reserve Bank has now trimmed or lowered risk weight requirements for banks and consumer microfinance loans by 25 percentage points to 100%. On November 23, the Reserve Bank of India had increased risk weights for banks and NBFCs or non-bank financial companies or the capital that they need to set aside for every loan by 25 percentage points to 125% on retail loans. While certain categories like housing loans had been excluded, obviously because there are underlying assets, microcredit was not.
The Reserve Bank also said it was restoring risk weight applicable on banks' exposure to non-bank lenders based on their credit rating. Remember, many non-bank finance companies who lend more aggressively on the retail side borrow in turn from regular banks, the quantum of all of which had also slowed down since that November 23 circular.
Oil Is Steady
Oil prices are holding around two-month lows on Wednesday as traders considered a likely peace deal between Russia and Ukraine and more on that shortly.
Brent is quoting just above $73 a barrel or around $73.18. A peace deal would mean sanctions on Russia could be lifted, which could mean more oil supply or free supply in the market. The United States and Ukraine have also agreed to terms of a draft minerals deal, which is central to US President Donald Trump's efforts to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
BP Goes Aggressive On Fossil Fuels
At the India Energy Week that took place a week before, several leaders from India's energy majors said publicly that they were seeing a welcome reversion to the mean when it came to ESG.
They point that energy companies were being forced to stretch themselves towards unattainable environmental and sustainable goals in the last few years. Of course, with Trump's return, the move towards an acceptable balance that is acceptable for the industry has been accelerated. BP said on Wednesday it would increase annual oil and gas investment to $10 billion, returning the focus to fossil fuels as part of its CEO Murray Auchincloss's efforts to boost returns and improve financial performance, according to Reuters.
BP had slashed annual investment plans in transition businesses by more than $5 billion than its previous forecast to about $1.5 billion to $2 billion. The company now says that they will grow upstream investment and production to allow them to produce high-margin energy for years to come, and they will focus their downstream on markets where they have leading integrated positions. Upstream is drilling, and downstream is products like petrochemicals.
In 2020, BP had pledged to cut oil and gas output by 40 percent while rapidly growing renewables by 2030. It lowered its reduction target to 25 percent from that 40 percent in 2023. Now, BP wants to grow production to about 2.3 to 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2030. The company says they will be selective in their investments in the transition, including through innovative capital-light platforms. Speaking of transitions, it's been three years now since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a move that shook up many things across the world, including, of course, the global energy markets. I reached out to London-based Beyond Shieldrop, Chief Commodities Analyst of SEB Research, and I began by asking him to take us through the key insights from this three-year period, takeaways from an energy market perspective, and then coming to the situation right now, given that a peace deal is eventually, or rather finally, in the offing.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Bjarne Schieldrop: So the first shock, of course, was tremendous, and with the focus and centre stage was the natural gas market, where prices for natural gas in Europe moved up to 400, 450 dollars per barrel of oil equivalent for natural gas in Europe, and in the global marketplace all the way up to 350 dollars per barrel of oil equivalent. We've never seen such a high oil price. Of course, prices started to fall back down quite rapidly, but then stayed high all through 2022 and into 23.
The natural gas market is very special because it's not so big in terms of the global LNG market, and it's very difficult to store a lot of LNG. So inventories of LNG or natural gas are much, much smaller than oil inventories. So it's a very fragile market and very sensitive to supply-demand balance changes in that.
So when we suddenly got a hit to supply into Europe, Europe needed much more nat gas from the global market in terms of LNG, and prices in the global market exploded. So that was the first round effect on nat gas. Then, of course, we also had the first round effect on the oil market.
Russia is a huge, or was a huge exporter of crude and feedstocks to refineries in Europe, as well as oil products to Europe. So very tightly integrated into the European oil space. Oil is very complex, except for transporting crude oil.
The refining and the consumption of oil products and production of oil products is a very, very complex business. When Europe and the US basically said, we're not going to buy crude and products from the US, then you have to reroute crude and products and feedstocks away from Europe into the global marketplace, down to Asia, and then reroute back again the same amount of crude from the Middle East into Europe, from the US into Europe, and oil products from India to Europe and China to Europe. That was a massive reorganisation of the flows of oil.
And that in itself lifted crude and products significantly, and especially big hit to middle district prices, which basically exploded with the price of jet fuel reaching like $170 to $190 per barrel at the peak, because of tightness in middle districts when Europe was challenged. But what is important with the sanctions which were implemented from the US and OECD countries versus Russia, was that they were very frightened about a loss of supply from Russian oil into the global market. They wanted oil to continue to flow from Russia into the global market.
They just wanted to reduce the monetary income to Russia as a result of what they did in Ukraine. So we never had any sanctions that hindered oil from flowing into the global market. So after a while, things normalised quite quickly on the oil side.
Last year, we had $80. The year before, we had $82. So a very normalised situation.
And the reduction in exports of crude and products from Russia, predominantly, it's self-decided in cooperation with Saudi Arabia and OPEC Plus. So it's wanted. So it's not sort of imposed by US-Europe in terms of lower exports.
It's something that Russia wants to do versus an agreement with OPEC Plus.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And if we were to come to the present, since we are now talking about a peace deal, and the oil market is also looking or weighing whether that could happen and what the contours of that could be, what could be the upsides of such a peace deal, if it were to happen from an energy point of view?
Bjarne Schieldrop: I think everyone now expects there will indeed be a peace deal. Ukraine cannot manage without the US in terms of support for military aid. So when Donald Trump says enough is enough, Ukraine has no option other than to listen to the US and try to negotiate the best possible deal for Ukraine as it can.
Of course, Europe is on the side of Ukraine, but it's challenging when Donald Trump goes hand in hand with Putin and not really very favourable versus Europe and Ukraine. But there will be a deal. And the question is what kind of deal and what will it mean for natural gas?
And I think in contemplation around this issue, I think the market has taken the conclusion, yes, there will be a deal. And yes, there will be new natural gas flowing on pipelines from Russia to Europe through Ukraine as one. Russia wants the income from the sale of the gas.
Ukraine wants the income from transiting gas from Russia to Europe. And Europe wants the gas from Russia because they want lower energy costs. So everyone wants this deal to happen.
So there will be natural gas starting to flow on Russian pipes through Ukraine at some point in time. And that is the big question now. I think more than anything is when and how much.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So between natural gas and oil, you feel natural gas is what is really going to drive the happening of this deal more than oil?
Bjarne Schieldrop: Yeah, at least in part. And we've seen natural gas prices fall like a rock. I mean, they priced more than $100 per barrel of oil equivalents less than a month ago.
And now it's down to $77 per barrel of oil equivalent for natural gas in Europe and set to fall to $65 next year. It was very expensive gas less than a month ago. And now it's falling like a rock because everyone knows there will be a deal and there will be more gas.
But from Donald Trump's side, yes, natural gas is important because the U.S. wants to export much more natural gas to the world, including Europe. So it doesn't want to see full return of natural gas flowing to Europe, basically barring the U.S. from exporting LNG to Europe. So I think there is a balance.
The U.S. wants some return to Europe. Russia wants some return. Ukraine wants some return.
Europe as well, but maybe not full return because Europe imported 40% of what it consumed of natural gas. 40% came from Russia before the invasion. Europe is never going to go back there.
Maybe 10%, maybe 15%. At all, not more than 20%. So neither Europe wants to be fully back to what it was.
So I think that is where probably everyone agrees that it shouldn't be all back to what it was. But for Donald Trump, oil is important. I mean, he has promised lower oil prices to the U.S. consumers. And he's talked loud and high about lower oil prices. And I think this is a very interesting point because, I mean, look at where the negotiations are happening. They are happening in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
And it's Putin, it's Mohammed bin Salman, and it is Donald Trump. And Ukraine is not even there. And these three are the biggest fossil fuel producers in the world.
So obviously, they are talking about energy, and landscape, and prices, and exports, and market shares as well when they talk about these things. What does Putin want more than anything? He wants all of Ukraine.
Well, maybe he's not getting all of Ukraine right now, but over time, that is his goal, getting as much as possible out of Ukraine, and possibly, and hopefully, in his view, controlling Ukraine in the end. So anything towards that direction, a favourable deal where he gets what he can get out of these negotiations with terms of as much as possible of control over Ukraine, that he's much more interested in that than a high oil price. So he's probably willing to forego volumes and oil prices in return for renewed exports of gas through Ukraine to Europe, a favourable deal.
And maybe, all right, so if he doesn't sell more oil, maybe Saudi Arabia can sell more oil. And if Saudi Arabia sells more oil, well, then they maybe can accept a lower oil price. So maybe everyone can accept some kind of solution.
And if then Donald Trump walks away with $65 oil instead of $80 as we had last year, well, it's maybe not going down to $50. And I don't think that Donald Trump and his friends in the US oil industry want to see the oil price down to $50 and $40 either, because then production in the US will fall. But a bit lower price, down from $80, down to $65, maybe that is something Donald Trump would be happy with, and which could be agreeable for Putin, Russia, Saudi Arabia, everyone.
So there's a lot of dealing and wheeling going on in Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia right now.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Thank you, Bjorn. Thank you very much for that very, very useful perspective and insight.
Bjarne Schieldrop: Thank you very much for having me on.
The European Union Asks Nicely
US President Donald Trump may rave and rant and fling barbs at India for being a tariff king, and of course, also threaten reciprocal tariffs. But he's not alone. The European Union also wants India to lower tariffs.
The only difference is that the EU is asking nicely. The European Union plans to urge India to lower its high tariffs on cars and wine to boost trade as it seeks to reduce its reliance on China, Reuters reported, quoting an official saying ahead of a visit by the European Commission President to India. The EU, by the way, is India's largest trading partner in merchandise goods, with trade nearing $126 billion in 2024.
And this figure has risen by about 90% in the last decade, according to Reuters. It is, of course, useful to know that the United States speaks of bourbon or whisky tariffs and the EU speaks of wine tariffs. A drink and an affordable one at that evidently is the key to good relationships.
The official told Reuters that the EU would press India to cut tariffs on some goods and broaden market access for its products while offering flexibility on agriculture issues to expedite free trade agreement talks. The official said that the Indian market is relatively closed, especially to key products of commercial interest to the European Union and their member states and industries, including cars, wines, and spirits. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's two-day visit starts Thursday and comes amidst escalating geopolitical tensions, and she will meet with both Prime Minister Modi and the Trade Ministry.
Reciprocal tariffs could, according to analysts at Citi Research, lead to potential losses of about $7 billion annually. The EU also wants to reduce its dependence on China and strengthen or further strengthen economic and security ties with India. In what is being seen or interpreted as an unexpected move, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a new immigration programme offering a direct path to US citizenship for foreign investors willing to pay $5 million or roughly 44 crore rupees.
The gold card will replace the employment-based EB-5 visa programme. This is obviously not very good news for Indians who had been seeing the EB-5 visa as an alternative to the H-1B visa and also doing much paperwork in that direction. According to reports, quoting Trump, the new scheme would allow investors to secure permanent US residency through a financial contribution.
We're going to be selling a gold card, he said on Wednesday, and we're putting a price of $5 million, and that's going to give you green card privileges. The vetting, of course, will continue. A partner at Circle of Councils told Business Standard that the increase from $1 million to $5 million may be the most obvious difference between the EB-5 programme and Trump's golden visa, but it is definitely not the most dramatic change.
India's AI March
In the next few days, I will be showcasing snippets from my conversations with various leaders in the information technology, consulting, and AI space, all of which happened at the NASSCOM Technology Leadership Forum earlier this week. I believe these are the first early and yet definitive insights on how AI is changing the way companies work or will work or will be forced to work. HCL Tech CEO C.
Vijay Kumar, who I spoke to earlier on Tuesday, for example, already said that the time had come for a business model shift. He's, of course, not alone. All this means that there are some profound changes underway, and you're possibly already in the middle of it or at an early stage.
I spoke with Nosheer Kaka, who co-heads consulting firm McKinsey's Alliances in Ecosystems Initiatives worldwide out of the firm's Mumbai office, and I asked him if India could lead in a globally competitive world in artificial intelligence. And in leading up to that answer, I also asked him where we were in that race, and then, of course, where we could win or not.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Noshir Kaka: To skip to the preamble and to start off with is to say we have to, okay? Artificial intelligence is not just like any other technology in my mind. It is a technology that enables humankind and it enables other technologies.
So, it is not an option for whether it's India or any other country. It's not an option, but you have to put your best foot forward to win. Do I believe we have got the ingredients and we have the potential to win?
Absolutely. Why? Because no matter what you may say, the underlying technology developed or depends on technical talent.
Even though many people say that this is an industry, that this is a technology that actually does away with the need for that, I actually think if you look at all the coding stats, the amount of code that's now put into GitHub has doubled in the last year. Fifty percent of that is machine-led. But it doesn't mean that the human code has actually gone down or even decreased its scope of growth, right?
So, the old adage of as things get cheaper, you write, do more of it, right? Continues here. So, number one, I think software is going to continue to eat the world's services.
It's actually getting enabled by software and AI is at the back of that. Second, as a country, outside of the talent pool, we are one of the greatest entities in the world when it comes to data, right? India has some of the largest data sets in the world.
We need to get the right regulation. We need to get the right checks and balances. But if you can sandbox that data to do innovation, that will be a massive leap forward, right?
And I think what the government is doing, whether it's the data embassy's idea or other ideas, it's a very, very powerful idea to go to that area. Yes, we do not have as yet the equivalent of the LLM answer that China has proven. That may not be the only answer, right?
Yes, we don't yet have the power or the data centres. I think those can be gotten. But talent and data are vital.
India has those. We have to build on it, right?
Govindraj Ethiraj: So, I'm going to come to the data and the India part in a moment. But when you say winning, or we have no choice but to win, which aspect of this race or game are you talking about specifically?
Noshir Kaka: AI is essentially nothing but applied intelligence, right? And if you look at what it is now able to do, right, you are able to design the next chip faster. You are able to respond to a medical emergency better, right?
These are fundamental things that, you know, all economies want to do. So, no economy is going to say that, look, I want to have less intelligence, right? If anything, they say, I want to have cutting-edge intelligence, right?
And that's what India has to do. Because this is a technology that, as I said, enables other technologies, enables humankind. We can't be left behind on that.
It's almost, in my mind, like a factor of production.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So, to build on your healthcare example, let's say if you're saying AI for scans, radiology, and therefore we need to make sure that we get the best because we have a healthcare problem in our country when it comes to capacity. So, is that what you're broadly suggesting?
Noshir Kaka: Yeah, I mean, radiology is a great example. It's been there for many years because people said radiologists will be out of business. Actually, they're probably one of the highest paid professions right now, right?
Because those who have learned to actually work with technology and actually dramatically improve their productivity are just winning.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay, so I'll come to the skill set in a moment. So, when you talk about the power of data and the fact that countries like India have a lot of it, which data set are we talking about and why are we not able to do or use it to the extent that you're thinking about?
Noshir Kaka: So, when you think about the platforms that the government has built, right, whether it's Aadhaar, UPI, and so on, right, these are some of the largest, if not the largest data sets in the world, right? And full credit to the government, I mean, you built them in a short span of time and most governments that I know around the world don't build working software. They don't build working software at this price point, at this scale, right?
So, I think we've got a unique set of assets. There are about 22 of those platforms, right? So, data, whether you think about authenticated properly with proper security and properly non-personalised data to actually use that or whether even business data, right, enterprise data, economic data, weather data, right, all of these can make a massive difference if they are enabled, right?
If you allow, and that's what the government is trying to do again with the data sets initiative, if they can do that and get that out and get the right regulations to help protect it, I think India will be at the forefront of AI as well.
Govindraj Ethiraj: If you can illustrate that with examples that you've seen elsewhere, where you said, okay, here was, let's say, country A, which used data so efficiently for maybe civic delivery or something else, where you feel India could be also following through or a category, yeah.
Noshir Kaka: I'll take even just India, right? If you look at our farm data today, right, the soil data, right, the weather data, right, you can pretty much predict a pest outbreak anywhere in the world, right, with a few data points like that. Imagine that in the hands of farmers in India, right, where you can actually predict an outbreak of a particular pest and actually even prevent it because you pretty much know with a certain type of crop pattern, with a certain type of weather, with a certain type of year, right, chances are the prevalence of this is particularly high, right?
Imagine that for the farmer, right? And that enables economic output at a level that we don't see anywhere else in the world. Look at you and I, right, in preparing for this.
I'm sure both of us have used some form of AI, right, behind it, which gives you so much better insight into how I think or how I should think and hopefully where I'm right and hopefully where I'm wrong.
Govindraj Ethiraj: How important are skills in ensuring that we are able to mine this data? And let me qualify that. The examples that you used, agriculture, there could be a problem today of insufficient sensors.
I mean, we want more data, but we are not able to. On the other hand, there may be areas like, let's say, private sector banks, where maybe the level of data mining or quality of data mining is very high. So how would you rank the two and where would you say are the gaps and the skills and so on?
Noshir Kaka: It's a very good point. We have studied a lot of enterprises globally, at least on the enterprise side. And we have looked at the ones that have actually invested behind and actually got their data architecture right.
We don't know whether causation, causality, leave that aside, but they consistently outperform their peers. And not marginally, we're talking 50-60% more value addition or value creation, right, for those who have invested in their own internal or external datasets. So what we are seeing is that companies who recognise the power of this as a management decision tool are just intuitively going to do better in the world where machines are able to manipulate these vast amounts of data.
So as in, you said industries, take telecom, right? For years, we've thought telecom was kind of a sleepy industry, except India is booming, but kind of worldwide, that's kind of a sleepy industry. You look at what leading telcos are doing around the network of the future, you look at leading networks around stores of the future, you look around, you know, them sending truck rolls to your home before the fault is even diagnosed, right?
Because they say, we think that this particular piece of equipment, either on this line or in your home, is actually going to fail, so we're going to replace it before that, right? That kind of capability we never had, and now you do. So the companies that have naturally been wired up to actually be clear about data, right, telcos, pharmaceutical companies, banks to a certain extent, obviously encumbered by regulation, and so on, the ones who've actually invested in their data architecture are winning.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So what you're saying should also be apparent and obvious to most people, but yet only some have done it, and they're too well, and others have not. Why is that?
Noshir Kaka: Well, the old saying goes, not the old saying, like in 2024, there's a saying that says technology delivered, people did not. And so I go back to saying what I said for many, many years, which is actually the rate limiting factor on the use of technology is humans. And if you and I had to, you know, let's say, go out and actually talk, do a conversation like this, or go out and meet a client, or, you know, write a note or something, you would actually prioritise that.
You wouldn't prioritise your data architecture, right? That's kind of, well, that's not mine, right? But companies that spend their time doing that consistently make better decisions that allow them to outperform.
And so it is the choice of where you tend to put your time is going to be the differentiator. And if you get that right, chances are you won't have to make many more decisions after that.
Mumbai's Second Airport Is Closer
Well, what I mean is it's closer in launch and not necessarily distance. We still don't have proper connectivity to it. But Mumbai's second airport is looking at an April 17th inauguration or in about six weeks time, according to reports.
Domestic flights are expected to start there from May. That's the Navi Mumbai International Airport, according to a Hindustan Times. If that deadline stands and the rain starts four weeks from then, as they usually do, Mumbai cars can look forward to several contemplative hours, if not entire days, spent on the road to and from the airport.
Navi Mumbai International Airport's first phase is expected to accommodate about 20 million passengers annually, with future expansion plans targeting 90 million passengers and two and a half million tonnes of cargo by 2032, by which time one hopes the roads connecting the airport to the city of Mumbai, or at least the heart of the city of Mumbai, will be in place.
Tesla Sales Crash
There is increasing scepticism around Tesla's imminent arrival in India, not about its arrival, but where its cars will actually land in terms of cars sold. Remember, among other things, there is no announcement as yet of a service network. Whether in anticipation or otherwise, companies like Mahindra have already rolled out electric versions of their cars, which have seen booking levels which can be best described as, well, electric.
The XCB9E and B6 sitting on the new InGlo platform of Mahindra's have seen a booking value of about eight and a half thousand crores at showroom price on the first day of opening about two weeks ago, with about 30,000 bookings, which is a little less than one third the entire electric car market for 2024, which was at about 100,000 cars. Tesla sales fell from 18,161 in Jan 24 to 9,945 in Jan 25, according to an analysis of new car registrations in the European Union, United Kingdom and the European Free Trade Association. The numbers are starker in just the EU, where sales fell almost 50%, from 15,000 to 7,500, according to the Washington Post, which added that the decline in sales comes as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has drawn worldwide criticism for his role in the US DOGE service, or the Department of Government Efficiency cancelling contracts and slashing staff in the US government, as well as for his frenetic activity on a social media site X. Tesla, of course, seems to be searching for ways to not invest in a plant, which it will have to do in order to benefit from reduced duties.
But then there is also a parallel track where India may have to bring down duties because of a threat of reciprocal tariffs from the United States. And some of these threats were, of course, delivered by Donald Trump and Elon Musk jointly. So it's a little difficult to say whose interest is dominating here, corporate or sovereign, or perhaps there's no difference, at least when it comes to Tesla.
Somewhere, this will all converge and it will be interesting to see if Tesla gets a bigger carrot than any other carmaker entering India has got, electric or otherwise.
