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In the grand tradition of turning every minor achievement into a national holiday, Indians are treating Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath’s casual chat with Elon Musk as the ultimate diplomatic coup.
Forget the UN Security Council; this is the real flex these days. On November 30, 2025, Kamath dropped the full two-hour episode of his “People by WTF” podcast featuring the world’s richest man. Just like that, every X handle from Mumbai to Manipur began waving the tricolor.
“India 1, Pakistan 0!” crowed one viral post, as if securing a podcast slot is the equivalent of solving any bilateral issue the neighbors harbor. In the age of social media metrics, nothing screams “superior civilization” like bagging an interview with a guy who tweets about his kids like they’re Pokémon cards.
The episode, which racked up 1.5 million YouTube views in hours, was billed as a “different conversation,” which migh very well be a code for “Elon being Elon, but with chai vibes.”
Kamath, the Bengaluru dropout who turned a call-center gig into a billion-dollar brokerage, played the perfect foil. He began by asking about Musk’s “Roman legion of children” (11 and counting, apparently), his obsession with the letter ‘X’ (“Honestly, sometimes I wonder…”), and whether work will become “optional” in an AI utopia.
Musk, ever the showman, obliged with gems like praising Indian talent (“America has benefited immensely from talented Indians”) and defending H-1B visas against “misuse” by outsourcing firms, a subtle nod to the very ecosystem Kamath embodies.
Indians lapped it up as some content that needs gobbling.
“From call center to Elon’s couch – that’s the Indian hustle!” one Reddit user gushed in r/IndiaTech, where the thread exploded with 2,874 upvotes and 208 comments celebrating it as “insane” proof of soft power.
X got flooded as well.
Banger Posted @nikhilkamathcio with @elonmusk 🔥
From a call center to interviewing Elon Musk.
Nikhil Kamath is the definition of the Indian Hustle.Elon Musk just said things no one expected — and India is right in the center of it.
> Musk loves the letter “X” — He joked… pic.twitter.com/lCQaAQtyNL
— Ashfaque (@ashfaque_dev) November 30, 2025
Another quipped, “We got Elon Musk and Nikhil’s podcast before GTA VI,” because nothing humbles a neighbor like beating Rockstar to a release date.
Elon Musk’s expression was gold when Nikhil Kamath asked him about his views on Pakistan 😭pic.twitter.com/1xr3iK7DGq
— Rainbow Salt (@Rainbowsalt91) December 1, 2025
But frankly, the compilation just makes the two of them creepy, and some Indian Redditors were quick to point out the awkwardness.
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Someone on X also said:
“if you’re Indian and building anything, this one will hit you hard. watch it.”
However, Instagram comments were nothing less than an untapped mine of gold.
And let’s not forget Musk’s not-so-subtle shade on Pakistan throughout 2025. From January retweets of “Pakistani grooming gangs” posts that had Al Jazeera labeling his X algorithm a “hall of mirrors” for Islamophobia, to April’s fact-checks exposing parody accounts he’d amplified as “anti-Pak propaganda,” Musk’s feed has been a one-man smear campaign.
In May, a CSOHate report tallied 650 Islamophobic posts (53% of 1,208 on UK “grooming” discourse) boosted by his engagement, with 1.2 billion views on his 51 tweets alone. By August, he was joking about “Pakistan rogue nation” in response to an MP’s tweet, prompting YouTube rants like “Tesla Boycott? Musk’s Post on Pakistan’s Incident Triggers Angry Backlash.” And don’t get started on his October Auschwitz visit, which Reddit users in r/pakistan linked to a “sudden” anti-Muslim pivot.
Yet, here’s the delicious twist: while Indians crow about one podcast like it’s the Nobel Prize, Pakistan is quietly lapping India in the metrics that actually matter. Take social media: Pakistan’s TikTok user base hit 67 million in 2025, surging 30% YoY and outpacing India’s growth (despite the ban there) in raw engagement, per DataReportal’s Digital 2025 report.
Pakistan edges India in follower growth for top influencers, with 72.9 million active users vs. India’s 46.44 million on Facebook alone, and TikTok’s FYP algorithm favoring Pakistani creators in viral challenges (1.59 billion global MAUs, 66.87 million in Pakistan per Statcounter).
Pakistan’s ecosystem raised $42.5 million in 2024 (up 16% YoY), outpacing India’s VC dip in Q1 2025, with 27 unicorns vs. India’s 110 but faster growth in fintech (e.g., SadaPay’s $30M round) per DealStreetAsia. Moreover, Pakistan hit $3.5 billion in IT services in 2025, growing 12% amid India’s 8% slowdown, per World Bank data. So while Indians get the interview, Pakistan gets the algorithms, the funding, and all the quiet wins.
It also seems like someone on the other side of the border has gotten a whiff of foul play. Not every Indian is as excited as some. While everyone is universally getting creeped out by the clips going around, some even believe Kamath may have compiled this interview with the help of AI.
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Or some people were not buying the billionaire-savior mindset such interviews project, especially in India, where persona halo effect has always taken deep roots.
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Want to catch the interview, AI or not? TechJuice has got you covered:
