(Reuters) – Tesla Inc is nearing a preliminary deal to build production facilities in Indonesia with a capacity of one million units, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted on Wednesday, “Please be cautious about writing articles citing ‘unnamed sources’, as they are frequently false,” in a comment on a tweet referencing the report.
Indonesia’s senior cabinet minister Luhut Pandjaitan, who has been leading the talks with Tesla, said negotiations were still ongoing, but declined to say more citing a non-disclosure agreement.
The electric-vehicle maker did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Musk last month said Tesla was close to picking the location of its new “Gigafactory” following media reports that the automaker could announce a new factory in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon as soon as December.
In November, Musk said South Korea was among its top candidate locations for a factory it plans to build in Asia for making EVs, according to South Korea’s presidential office.
Tesla makes its electric cars in China’s Shanghai, Germany’s Berlin, and Austin and Fremont in the United States.
The latest report said the Indonesia talks include plans for production facilities and to facilitate the company’s supply chain.
Tesla has signed contracts worth about $5 billion to buy materials for batteries from nickel processing companies in Indonesia, Luhut told CNBC Indonesia last year.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged the electric vehicle maker to manufacture its cars, as well as batteries, in the country, in comments made to Bloomberg News in August.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru, Hyunjoo Jin in Seoul, and Bernadette Christina Munthe in Jakarta; Editing by Shailesh Kuber, Ed Davies)
