President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkey could enter into joint work with Elon Musk on technology if there are opportunities for cooperation.

Erdogan has met the billionaire entrepreneur and world’s richest man—this week appointed by US President-elect Donald Trump to head a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (Doge)—several times, while he has talked about the upcoming second American presidency of Trump as offering Turkey great opportunities.

In September last year, Erdogan asked Musk during a meeting with the entrepreneur in New York City to build a Tesla electric vehicle (EV) gigafactory in Turkey. Musk in turn described how many Turkish suppliers were already working with Tesla, of which he is CEO, and said that Turkey was among the prime candidates for Tesla’s next EV plant.

Erdogan at the meeting also reportedly told Musk that Turkey was open to cooperation on artificial intelligence (AI) and Starlink, the satellite internet business of Musk's SpaceX.

"Musk is a businessman who works in the space and technology field," Erdogan told reporters on a return flight from the COP29 climate change conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, TRT Haber reported on November 13. "Technology isn't a field you can advance on your own, you absolutely need some cooperation. In the event cooperation opportunities arise in this field, steps can be taken with Musk," he was further cited as saying.

The jury is out on whether the second Trump presidency will amount to a net gain for Turkey. During the first presidency, from 2017 to 2020, Erdogan and Trump came across as good pals during the former’s visits to the White House, but behind the scenes Turkish officials would later complain that, while Trump was big on promises, there was rarely any follow-through.

Erdogan has invited Trump to visit Turkey, while he clearly hopes that he will withdraw US troops from northern Syria, where they are allied with Kurdish militia that Ankara has long wanted to pursue without hindrance.

Musk, meanwhile, who acquired social media network Twitter last year and renamed it as X, has referred to himself as a free speech absolutist, but at the same time he has complied with some Turkish government demands to censor content in Turkey.

In May last year, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, hit out at Twitter's decision to block some content within Turkey the day before the country held its presidential and parliamentary elections. Musk said that Turkey threatened to block the whole Twitter site if some specified content was not pulled.