How this 23-year-old Pune engineer became 'friends' with Elon Musk on Twitter

Elon Musk and Pranay Pathole now regularly interact on Twitter. (1st Image credit: @PPathole/Twitter)

A random tweet on Tesla’s automatic windscreen wipers in 2018 put Pranay Pathole in tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Twitter DMs.

The then 2nd year engineering student from Pune had got an instant reply from Musk about an update on Tesla windshields. “Fixed in next release”, Musk replied promptly that astonished the teenager.

Now, Pathole, 23, is a software developer for Tata Consultancy Services and is Elon Musk’s Twitter friend.

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Pathole recounts his experience that made him the richest man on earth’s 'Twitter friend'.

“A Reddit user had posted a query and I was intrigued. It was related to automatic wipers. I found that very interesting. I thought I could tweet it to Elon. And if he replies, then maybe he could consider that feature for Tesla. And, within a couple of minutes of tweeting, he had responded! I was just blown away by seeing him respond to me,” Pathole told HT.

The young man also says how interactions with Musk are very regular now.

“When Elon responded to me for the first time, that was the highlight of my life. But now my interactions with him have become very casual. We talk back and forth through Direct Messages (DMs) on Twitter,” Pathole says.

Describing Musk as ‘super friendly’, Pathole says Musk is humble and has no airs about his status. He adds Musk is very active on Twitter and gets responses within minutes whenever he messages him.

"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," he adds.

Pathole says their talks range from Mars to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO's early days.

“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.”

With regular responses from Musk, Pathole’s Twitter following is ever increasing. His pinned tweet on Twitter is also one that Musk responded to.

Pathole says his future plans include a Master’s degree from the US and eventually work with Elon Musk, if he gets the chance.