"We cannot just apply America to Earth," said Twitter owner Elon Musk in his response to former CEO of the micro-blogging site, Jack Dorsey's claim that the Modi government pressured the social media platform during a massive farmers' protest in India.

When pressed for a response, Musk, a business magnet and the owner of Twitter, told India Today, "Twitter doesn't have a choice but to obey local governments. If we don't obey local government laws, we will get shut down."

"We cannot just apply America to Earth... We will do the best to provide the freest speech that is possible under the law," the Tesla CEO added.

BJP slams Congress after 'Musk' response

The response from Musk has prompted the country's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to train its gun at the prime opposition camp, Congress.

BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya tweeted, "In a complete meltdown moment for the toolkit gang, incumbent Twitter boss Musk feigned complete ignorance about Jack Dorsey’s recent statement about India and further added, 'We can’t apply America to earth….'. Congress’s Shrieking Jane had sought to legitimise Dorsey’s tripe."

What did Jack Dorsey say?

During an interview last week with YouTube channel Breaking Points, when asked about the pressures he had received from foreign governments during his time as CEO of Twitter, Dorsey said, "India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers protest, around particular journalists that were critical of the government, and it manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter down in India,’ which is a very large market for us."

"We will raid the homes of your employees,’ which they did; ‘we will shut down your offices, if you don’t follow suit,’ and this is India, a democratic country," he said.

Cong-BJP fight over Dorsey's claims

Responding to these claims, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar had said that under Dorsey, Twitter was in “repeated and continuous violations of India law” and at times “weaponised misinformation”.

On BJP refuting Dorsey's allegation, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate had said, "I was not expecting the government to say anything else. There is no other defence other than saying Dorse is lying. The government has a lot to gain through lying."

"What is the PM so scared about? Anybody exposing the government and asking uncomfortable questions will be raided, pressurised, and humiliated. It is evidently clear that Opposition voices are regularly 'suppressed' at the behest of the Modi government," Shrinate said.

Musk meets Modi in the US

Speaking to reporters, Musk, who met Prime Minister Modi for the first time, said: "PM Modi really cares about India because he is pushing us to make significant investments in India, which is something that we tend to do. We just have to figure out the right timing."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in New York on Tuesday for a rare three-day state visit to the US, during which he is set to address the joint session of the US Congress and dine with President Biden.