Grok Goes the Weasel as Musk's Tesla EVs Come Rolling into India

X's legal skirmish with the government could be part of a Trojan Horse strategy for brand salience

- DILIP CHERIAN

When an article in the New Yorker opined that, "Focusing on the spectacle at the expense of understanding what Trump and his allies are actually doing has led to some of the most epically wrong things in the history of American politics," Susan Glasser was obviously not even thinking about an imminent battle between the Donald Trump-backed but Elon Musk-owned AI handmaiden (a descriptor the US president might like) Grok and the government of India.

After all, this battle needs to be placed squarely in the realm of geopolitics—and optics. For Trump's most powerful right-hand man Musk, business must mix messily with politics to allow for enough bones and offal to satisfy the appetite that the two have displayed in the initial months of their rule. Remember that Musk, whose microblog platform X is suing the Indian government over free speech, has entered this battle after appearing to bend into submission Indian players that may have been expecting to be speed-breakers on his way to global dominance of communications via markets like India.

Defeats have been publicly visible in the last fortnight—more than just a minister who had to quickly delete a tweet welcoming Musk to India. Hefty Indian players seem to have conceded the fact that Musk the Dogged Supremo is acting on behalf and at the behest of his friend and supporter in the White House.