Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan conveyed the good news regarding Indonesia’s electricity industry. According to him, the electric car manufacturer from the United States (US), Tesla, will invest in Indonesia. Currently, the government is discussing several agreements with Tesla.
It is known that Tesla is busy with his affairs, but still maintains good communication with the Indonesian government.
“We are still in constant communication with Tesla because Tesla is still busy with domestic affairs, and Twitter problems,” said Luhut. Monday (8/8/2022).
Luhut claimed that Tesla had signed a cooperation contract with one of the industries in the Morowali area. However, he did not specify the company in question.
“We have engaged (involved) around US$ 5 billion (equivalent to Rp. 74.31 trillion at an exchange rate of Rp. 14862.71/US$),” said Luhut.
Luhut emphasized that the Indonesian government had no significant obstacles in the negotiation process with Tesla. However, Luhut said, the internal problems faced by Elon Musk’s company are currently considered more important.
“As I said earlier, there is their domestic problem, I also don’t want to interfere. Our communication is still going on. He doesn’t have much choice, we’ll see,” he explained.
In fact, Luhut admitted, the government had planned a meeting with the Tesla team. “The Tesla team will come this August, I promise on Monday I will talk to the team about how the progress is,” said Luhut.
Luhut emphasized that both parties had agreed not to disclose any information to the public regarding all matters being discussed.
“Look, we have an agreement not to reveal what we will discuss together. This is their style, so we respect it,” he explained.
Luhut added that until now, the discussion process is still ongoing, and no agreement has been signed. “The progress has not stopped, everything is still in progress. I don’t see anything from us,” he concluded.
It was reported last May that President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) met with Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk at the SpaceX Stargate Building, Boca Chica, United States, Saturday (14/5).
Jokowi explained that this visit was a follow-up to his directive to the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan regarding cooperation with the world’s richest man.
“A follow-up to my order to talk to Elon about investment, about technology, about innovation, and now I’m here and meet directly with Elon to discuss future cooperation,” Jokowi said after touring the SpaceX rocket production facility, quoted in a Press statement, Sunday (15/5).
Furthermore, Elon also expressed his interest in collaborating with Indonesia. He assessed that Indonesia has a lot of potentials.
“We will see closely the form of cooperation in many ways because Indonesia has a lot of potentials. Moreover, Indonesia has a large population and continues to grow. This is good because we need a lot of people in the future,” explained Elon.
