Amid his widely publicized buyout of Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took time out to meet with a delegation from Indonesia, including Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, to discuss tapping into the country’s nickel-rich resources.
Anindya Bakrie, who chairs the Advisory Board of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), was part of the delegation and shared photos from the meeting.
“Our aim is to convince Tesla to cooperate with Indonesia on nickel processing as raw material for [electric vehicle] battery cell,” Anindya wrote in the caption, adding that the Indonesian delegation was given a tour of Tesla’s auto manufacturing factory in Austin, Texas.
Another attendee was Pandu Sjahrir, one of Indonesia’s leading mining entrepreneurs and a nephew of Luhut. On Instagram, he said Musk was enthusiastic about the prospect of Tesla investing in Indonesia.
Musk, who has clinched a deal to buy Twitter for US$44 billion, has not tweeted about the meeting as of this article’s publication.
The Indonesian government was actually in talks with Tesla about the establishment of a battery plant in the Southeast Asian country, which fell through two years ago. Last month, Luhut publicly warned Tesla that Indonesia is “not a banana republic” and lambasted the company for its excessive demands that led to a breakdown in previous talks.
