New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS): Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk finally met his Twitter buddie from Pune, the 24-year-old IT professional Pranay Pathole, at his Gigafactory in Texas.

In a tweet on Monday, Pathole who works as a software developer for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), said it was so great to meet Musk in person.

"It was so great meeting you @elonmusk at the Gigafactory Texas. Never seen such a humble and down-to-earth person. You're an inspiration to the millions," he said in a tweet, posting a picture of Musk with him.

Musk and Pathole have been friends since 2018 on Twitter, and keep discussing a myriad of topics from space to cars and more.

"A dream come true @PPathole ...The feeling of meeting someone whom you have admired for so long, would be nothing less than seeing God .... :) Upwards and onwards from here.. best wishes," tweeted his father, Prashant Pathole.

In May, Musk had said that he is not running Pathole's Twitter account.

Pathole, who has more than 1.8 lakh followers, had said: "Many people think that @elonmusk runs my Twitter account. And it's TRUE. He's a super busy guy, building rockets, making life multiplanetary, building futuristic electric vehicles, digging tunnels. And somehow he finds time to run multiple Twitter accounts. YES."

Musk replied: "Haha I don't even have a burner twitter account! I do have a cheesy secret Instagram account, so I can click on links that friends send me."

The Tesla CEO hardly misses replying to Pathole's tweets.

In 2018, Musk, for the first time, replied to Pathole and since then, their exchange of words continues.

They now talk back and forth through Direct Messages (DMs) on Twitter.

Pathole's GitHub profile describes him as a machine learning (ML) engineer and "Nerding out about Space and Rockets on Twitter."