Why is Elon Musk in this 23-year-old Indian’s Twitter DMs? A breakdown of their unique friendship
It’s no secret that the SpaceX CEO Elon Musk loves to share his thoughts on microblogging site Twitter where he enjoys overs 78 million followers. He is pretty active and also straightforward with his tweets.
But did you know that he is also friends with a Pune-based man whom he met and befriended on Twitter?
Yes, this is the story about how a tweet led to a unique friendship between one of the world’s richest men and a software developer from India.
In 2018, Pranay Pathole, who was a second-year engineering student in Maharashtra’s Pune at that time, tweeted about Tesla’s automatic windscreen wipers. His tweet was addressed to Elon Musk. But little did Pathole know that he’d actually be getting a response from the Tesla boss himself.
Within a few minutes of his tweet, Musk replied to Pathole saying that the issue will be “fixed in next release” and thus started a friendship between the two.
An user on Reddit posted, "When getting into the car in the rain, the wipers auto setting triggers when you open the door, which proceeds to dump all the water on the windshield into the car and you.Hopefully future update will fix it" @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/hPx8KIBoTd
— Pranay Pathole (@PPathole) January 9, 2018
Cut to 2022, Pathole, who currently works as a software developer for Tata Consultancy Services, is already a well-known name on the Internet where he enjoys over 108K following on Twitter. The 23-year-old often interacts with the Tesla chief on the microblogging site, where he also keeps sharing his two bits about the work being done by companies owned by the 50-year-old billionaire.
Their bond is quite visible on Twitter, the reason why many keep requesting Pathole to convey their thoughts to Musk himself.
So how does it feel to have the wealthiest man in the world popping up in your DMs? Pathole, in an interview with Hindustan Times, shares that Musk is “super friendly” and has no airs about himself.
For the 23-year-old, talking with Musk on Twitter just feels like hanging out with a friend.
“He is super friendly. It doesn’t feel like you are interacting with the world’s richest person. To me, it feels like you are just hanging out with another buddy of yours. That’s what it feels like, honestly. He is very frank and straightforward,” he says.
Musk is also very quick with his replies and almost always responds within minutes of texting him, Pathole reveals.
“He is very active on Twitter apparently because whenever I DM him, I get a reply within a couple of minutes,” he adds.
So, What’s On The Chat Menu?
Pathole shares that their conversations on Twitter range from Mars and humanity to turning life multi-planetary. In one of the conversations, Musk also told his 23-year-old Twitter friend how he flew from South Africa to Canada with just $2,000 and a suitcase full of books.
“Our DM conversations range from topics like making life multi-planetary, why going to Mars is very essential for the core survival of humanity. We have also spoken about his past, his upbringing. He told me about how he flew from South Africa to Canada with just 2,000 dollars, and a suitcase full of books,” Pathole says.
Pathole, who is Musk’s biggest fan (by his own admission), has been applying to a Masters programs in the United States in the hope to work with the man himself one day.
“He (Musk) is super intelligent and his heart is very much at the right place. I really believe that. And a lot of people can sense that. He is trying to do these big, crazy, ambitious things for the right reasons. It would definitely be an amazing learning opportunity for a young guy like me. That’s what I aspire and think of doing in future,” he adds.