Elon Musk has lashed out after being snubbed from a major UK investment conference.
The thin-skinned billionaire was not invited to the Government’s International Investment Summit over comments he made during this summer’s riots. “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted pedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts,” Mr Musk tweeted yesterday. No sex offenders have been included in the early prison release programme.
After three children were killed in a stabbing attack in Southport and violence erupted across the UK, Mr Musk posted on his social media platform X, which most people still call Twitter, promoting false claims, suggesting that a civil war in the UK was “inevitable” and attacking the Prime Minister. Keir Starmer will host the International Investment Summit on October 14 – two weeks before the autumn Budget.
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The Government hopes the summit will attract hundreds of leading chief executives and financiers and is part of efforts to show that the UK is “open for business” after a period of political and economic turmoil. BNY, Blackstone and CyrusOne have confirmed attendance, according to the Treasury. A list of attendees has not been released.
Investment giant Blackstone has already confirmed a £10 billion deal to develop Europe’s largest AI data centre in Blyth, Northumberland. The firm’s president, Jon Gray, will be among the executives at a roundtable event hosted by Mr Starmer on Thursday.
Mr Musk was a star guest at the UK Government’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit last year, during which then-prime minister Rishi Sunak interviewed him for almost an hour in front of business chiefs. But it appears he will not be courted by the new Labour administration after his posts about the disorder in the UK last month.
False information that spread on social media about the identity of the alleged Southport knife attacker has been seen as playing a role in sparking the days of violence.
The billionaire engaged with posts by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, suggested that civil war in the UK was “inevitable”, and retweeted a fake Daily Telegraph headline suggesting rioters would be sent to detention camps in the Falkland Islands. The social media tycoon also called the Prime Minister “two-tier Keir”, a reference to claims that police have a “two-tier” approach to protests and deal with some more harshly than others.
Justice Minister Heidi Alexander said at the time that Mr Musk’s comments on civil war were “deeply irresponsible” and Sir Keir’s spokesman said there was “no justification for comments like that”.