As India celebrates 78 years of independence, the “Made in India” movement is making its mark globally, with Indian startups challenging established industries across the globe. Just as Elon Musk has revolutionised electric vehicles in America, Bhavish Aggarwal is leading a similar charge with Ola in India.
“Tesla is for the West, Ola is for the Rest,” resonated Aggarwal, at its annual flagship event, Sankalp 2024, where the company highlighted its achievements and outlined plans for the coming years.
Aggarwal emphasised three factors to drive the vision for the company — Youth, Dream, and Future.
As Ola races to join the ranks of top global players, it’s hard to ignore the resemblance between Aggarwal and the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk.
Common Traits
Aggarwal launched Olatrip.com in 2010, marking the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey.
Over the past 14 years, he’s gone on to establish Ola Consumer (Ola Cabs), Ola Electric, India’s first listed two-wheeler EV company, and six months ago set on building the country’s top AI and computing company– Ola Krutrim.
(Source: Ola)
Aggarwal’s vision is rooted in his deep respect for India. “Never underestimate the Indian consumer – they are the smartest – they want to build and be the future”, he asserted.
Further taking steps towards sustainability, Ola has also established India’s first lithium manufacturing factory. As Aggarwal put it, “The world cannot achieve sustainable goals without India.”
Turning to Musk, his entrepreneurial journey started in 1995, with Zip2, an American technology company. Since then, Musk has co-founded six companies, including electric car maker Tesla, rocket producer SpaceX, and tunnelling startup Boring Company.
Ownership and Valuation
In 2017, Ola Electric was born as a subsidiary of Ola, but between 2018-19, it ventured out as its own entity. Fast forward to 2024, and the company’s market cap stands at $7.81 billion. Aggarwal holds a significant 30.02% stake in the company.
In comparison, Tesla with its market cap of $698.31 billion, is leading the electric vehicle space. Musk, who owns roughly 12% of Tesla, has pledged more than half his shares as collateral for personal loans amounting to $3.5 billion.
Meanwhile, Ola’s footprint is very small compared to Tesla, it is steadily growing. Aggarwal’s entrepreneurial spirit shines through his AI startup, Krutrim, which recently achieved unicorn status, after securing $50 million in funding from investors including Matrix Partners India.
This makes Krutrim the first Indian AI startup to hit a billion-dollar valuation, just a month following the launch of its LLM. The company, whose name itself means “artificial” in Sanskrit, has ambitious plans, like developing data centres and aiming to build servers and supercomputers for the AI ecosystem.
On the other hand, Musk’s xAI is making waves in the AI industry with its mission to accelerate human scientific discovery. In May, xAI achieved an $18 billion valuation after raising $6 billion, with investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Saudi entrepreneur Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, and Fidelity Management & Research Company.
What’s Next?
The similarities between Aggarwal and Musk go beyond business as both are no strangers to controversy and receive a good amount of backlash from the media.
Musk once boldly declared at the New York Times annual DealBook Summit 2023, “I have no problem being hated.”
Similarly, Aggarwal has taken controversial stances, such as criticising gender pronouns, which he dismissed as “pronouns illness” from the West.
Musk’s personal life also sparked outrage when he disowned his transgender daughter, claiming she was “killed” by what he calls the “woke mind virus.”
So both men have chosen to stand by their beliefs, regardless of the wave of criticism that follows.
As we further trace the parallels between Aggarwal and Musk, two elements are notably absent. Ola has yet to dip its feet into the social media game – though perhaps a strategic partnership would have rescued Koo from shutting down, and allowing Aggarwal to claim that field as well.
He is anyway planning to build digital public infrastructure (DPI) for social media.
And while India doesn’t have SpaceX yet, may later establish ‘AntarikshOla’ someday?
