Errol Musk, father of billionaire industrialist Elon Musk, visited Ayodhya on Wednesday with his daughter Alexandra and a team of 15 personal staff to offer prayers at the temple.

He also visited Hanumangarhi before flying back to New Delhi in his plane.

Errol is on the global advisory board of an Indian firm, Servotech Renewable Power System Ltd.

Govind Giri, the treasurer of the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, said: “Most rich and powerful people of India had attended the first pran pratishtha (consecration) of the Ram temple (on January 22, 2024). Today, the father of the richest man in the world was at the temple when the pran pratishtha of Ram as the king of Ayodhya was going on.”

Pran pratishtha is believed to be a ritual to infuse life into an idol. It was first done at the Ram temple when the idol of Ram Lalla was installed on the ground floor in 2024. The construction of the court of Lord Ram was completed recently on the first floor of the temple.

The shankaracharyas, the top representatives of the Hindu religion, however, had said last year that the consecration of an incomplete temple was inauspicious and accused the BJP of drawing political mileage out of it. The rest of the temple is still under construction and more such consecrations cannot be ruled out in future.

Errol arrived in India on June 1 and will be here till June 6. A Servotech spokesperson was quoted as saying that Errol was supposed to visit the Taj Mahal, but the plan was dropped because of extreme heat. His visit is meant “for exploring the possibility to expand green technology and electric vehicle charging technology”.