Podcaster gets Modi, Zelensky and Trump on his show – Putin may be next

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, rarely gives interviews and stays away from press conferences.

But this weekend he sat down for more than three hours with Lex Fridman, a US podcaster who also interviewed Trump in September, Zelensky in January, and has dropped hints that he’s about to talk to Putin in Moscow.

Fridman, a computer scientist by training, became well-known in 2019 when a non-peer reviewed paper he wrote about Tesla Autopilot was picked up by Elon Musk.

His YouTube channel now boasts 4.6 million subscribers and has become a safe space for the likes of Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Jordan Peterson, Ivanka Trump, Mr Beast and Mark Zuckerberg to extemporise on lofty topics without being challenged.

In his interview with Modi, Fridman called the prime minister a “great peacemaker” before allowing him to give his account of the simmering conflict between India and Pakistan.

An amazing opening for a hard-nosed journalist to probe further, except Fridman’s next question was about cricket.

Photo credit: @lexfridman/Instagram