PM Modi meeting Elon Musk during his recent US visit (image-X/narendramodi)

Days after CEO Elon Musk met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the United States, Tesla Inc. has initiated recruitment in India by advertising 13 job postings on its LinkedIn page on Monday. The move indicates the EV firm’s entry into the country after several unsuccessful attempts before.

Based on its LinkedIn page, Tesla is looking to fill several positions across different departments including customer-facing and back-end roles. Some of the jobs include service technician and advisory positions in Mumbai and Delhi.

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Other job positions include customer engagement manager and delivery operations specialist exclusively for Mumbai.

In the past, Tesla had shown interest in entering the Indian market but high import duties on foreign-made cars prevented it. Notably, India had one of the highest import duties on luxury EVs, with taxes going up to 110 percent. Musk has also cited the high duties as a major obstacle preventing the EV firm enter India.

But India could become a viable market since the government reduced the basic customs duty on high-end cars above $40,000 from 110 percent to 70 percent.

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Amid declining Tesla sales, India poses as a viable market for the company even though it is much smaller than China’s. The latter recorded nearly 11 million units; India recorded only 100,000 electric car sales in 2024.