When Elon Musk praised Ratan Tata as a ‘gentleman and a scholar.’ Watch

Elon Musk once praised Ratan Tata as a “gentleman and a scholar” in an old interview that has resurfaced online. In a 2009 interview with American journalist Charlie Rose, the founder and CEO of electric automobile company Tesla shared his opinion of Ratan Tata and his pet project, the Tata Nano car. A short clip from the larger interview is currently going viral on social media.
During the interview, Charlie Rose asked Elon Musk about Ratan Tata and his idea of introducing a low-cost car in the Indian market. The interview took place months after Tata Motors launched the Nano for ₹1 lakh in India.
“Take for a moment Ratan Tata, what he’s doing in India — developing a little sedan for $2300. Where do you put that in the whole equation of where the future of cars is?” Rose asked Musk.
The billionaire CEO of Tesla, today the world’s richest man, praised Ratan Tata but shared his doubts about the Tata Nano.
“I think it’s a good idea to have affordable cars, but I think the problem with something like the Nano … I wouldn’t say problem because I think, by the way, it is probably a great idea and Ratan is a gentleman and scholar,” Musk said.
“But where it’s going to become challenging is in the future is when the price of gasoline rises, the cost of acquiring the car is much less of an issue than the cost of running the car,” he explained.

The interview surfaced online earlier this week as part of a larger X thread discussing the failure of Tata Nano.
The car faced several hurdles before its launch, when it was then branded as “Cheap” rather than affordable. The Tata Nano saga has been called one of the biggest marketing failures in the world, and the car was eventually discontinued in 2018.