What Led Elon Musk To Postpone India Trip 'Heavy Obligations', global layoffs and huge bot operations running on the micro-blogging site X, the reasons are plenty

Tesla founder Elon Musk on Saturday morning said he has postponed his trip to India citing 'very heavy Tesla obligations.' Musk, who also owns SpaceX, was to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his two-day visit and was expected to announce investments of $2-3 billion for expanding his businesses in India.

"Unfortunately, very heavy Tesla obligations require that the visit to India be delayed, but I do very much look forward to visiting later this year," Musk confirmed on X but also said he looks forward to visiting India later this year.

Musk last week said that he was "looking forward to meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India," reports said he could arrive here on April 21. He met the Prime Minister in the US last June and assured that Tesla will enter the Indian market.

As the Indian government announced a policy lowering high tariffs on imported cars if firms invest locally, Musk's investment was focused on building a factory for entry-level cars amid the long-awaited Tesla Inc's entry into the Indian market.

Musk has to reportedly attend a crucial conference call on April 23 in the United States to answer questions about Tesla's first quarter performance.

Tesla would cut at least 10% of its global workforce

Less than two weeks after Tesla announced its first year-over-year delivery drop since 2020, CEO Elon Musk sent an internal email to staff stating that the company would cut at least 10% of its global workforce.

Musk's memo, sent at close to midnight PST on Sunday in California, explained that "there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas" and that the layoffs would happen "for cost reductions and increasing productivity."

Tesla employees shared rumors of layoffs as high as 20% with Electrek on Sunday. Musk's email confirmed that the percentage was more than 10% without specifically stating how many employees will be affected.

Reports suggest Tesla had 140,473 employees globally as of December 31, as per 2023 annual report, indicating that at least 14,000 people will be impacted.

Lingering issues: Musk defends crackdown on bot operations on X

Huge bot operations are run on the micro-blogging site X, which is reducing the content quality to a great extent, Elon Musk said on Saturday, as he defended his decision to act on spam accounts which resulted in many users losing followers.

"I'm just talking about people running massive bot spam operations that unequivocally reduce the quality of content," the billionaire responded to a follower, earlier this month as the social media platform kicked off the exercise to remove bots.

As per reports he clarified that the ban on fake engagement refers to those who use bots to artificially inflate their engagement. "Botting for fake engagement," said the Tesla CEO. The action came as porn bots flooded X in the last few months. Earlier this week, Musk announced that new X users may be charged for posting content on the micro-blogging site.