Elon Musk shows interest in expanding Tesla investments in Turkiye

Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk showed interest in Turkey (Türkiye) for investment and exploring the country’s tech and engineering talent.

Via his social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk shared a promo video of Teknofest, Trukey’s biggest yearly technological festival. “Congratulations to all the teams competing in Teknofest,” Musk recognized the efforts of the Teknofest teams who demonstrated their abilities.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Elon Musk met in New York on Sep 18 ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting. Erdogan invited Elon Musk to attend the Teknofest event. But due to his hectic schedule, he could visit this year. But Musk said that he is going to participate in the event next year and thanked the Turkish president for his invitation as well.

“I look forward to attending in person next year, as well as discussing further opportunities for investment in Türkiye,” Musk posted on X.

Musk and Erdogan’s meeting in New York last week made headlines as the Turkish president asked the Tesla boss to set up a Gigafactory in his country. However, Elon Musk did not pledge to build a Gigafactory in Turkey in this meeting.

But in the X post mentioned above, Elon Musk showed his interest in increasing Tesla’s investments in Turkey. These investments might be in the form of increasing Tesla Superchargers, showrooms, and service centers in Turkey. Tesla might also increase its recruitment from Turkey to fetch tech and engineering talent from the country.

As far as investing in a Gigafactory in Turkey, it seems too distant in the future, even if Musk considers it at all. There are at least 2 Gigafactories already in the pipeline — Gigafactory Quebec, Canada and Giga Mexico. On the verge of these new giga car manufacturing plants in the making, Musk would never take another giga task on his hands in the near future at least.

Teknofest is still going on in Turkey, today is the 4th day of this event taking place in the city of Izmir. The demonstration at Teknofest includes engineering, aerospace, robotics, and tech in general. Elon Musk must have been impressed by the efforts of the Turkish talent that he pledged to attend the event next year. Here are some more videos and updates from the event through its official account on X.

Musk has met 3 world leaders this month, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and the President of Hungary Katalin Novák.

Just days after the Elon Musk and Erdogan meeting, Musk's satellite internet provider Starlink applied for a license to operate in Turkiye.

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Sources: X / Elon Musk, Teknofest.

Note: An earlier version of this article was published at Tesla Oracle. Author: Iqtidar Ali.