The world’s richest person, Elon Musk, has hit back after not being invited to the UK government’s International Investment Summit.
He was not invited due to his social media posts during last month’s riots, the BBC understands.
“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 claimed on X.
Earlier this month, the government released some prisoners to reduce prison overcrowding, but no-one serving sentences for sex offences were included.
Following disorder and rioting across the UK in August, some people were jailed for encouraging unrest on social media.
During the August riots, Mr Musk posted on X, formerly Twitter, predicting civil war in the UK and repeatedly attacking the prime minister.
He also shared, and later deleted, a conspiracy theory about the UK building “detainment camps” on the Falkland Islands for rioters.
At the time, ministers said his comments were “totally unjustifiable” and “pretty deplorable”.
The BBC understands this is why he has not been invited to join hundreds of the world’s biggest investors at the event on 14 October. The government declined to comment.
The summit is the key moment that PM Sir Keir Starmer hopes will attract tens of billions of pounds in inward funding for business from the world’s biggest investors.
Mr Musk was invited to last year’s event but did not attend. However, he took a starring role in November’s AI Summit, including a fireside chat with then-PM Rishi Sunak.
Jeremy Hunt, the former Conservative chancellor and now the shadow chancellor, told the BBC it was a “big loss” not to have Mr Musk at the summit.
“He told me last year he was planning a new car plant in Europe and had not decided where but the UK was a candidate,” Mr Hunt claimed.
David Yelland, a public relations specialist and former editor of the Sun newspaper, told the BBC that if Mr Musk were to attend the summit, it would be “reputationally disastrous for the whole event”.
“He’s a fan of free speech but he behaves like a child and he posts things that are deeply inaccurate and extremely damaging,” he said.
“This is not just a guy that is saying stuff in the pub. This is a guy that is encouraging untruths around the world.”
Reputational risk
The government’s decision not to invite Mr Musk to the summit suggests it thinks the potential investment is not worth the reputational risk and opens up uncomfortable questions about the background of other investors it has actively encouraged.
Attracting international investment routinely involves charm offensives with investors or nations with questionable human rights records.
The government has actively pursued trade links in the Gulf. Sir Keir, for example, publicly boycotted the 2022 World Cup in Qatar as leader of the opposition, but now he and his team routinely visit these nations to drum up trade and investment.
A number of top sovereign wealth fund executives are expected at the summit.
Mr Musk is said to be turning his attention to a second European gigafactory in addition to his plant in Berlin, Germany, after completing his Mexican plant.
Under the Conservatives, the Tesla boss was quietly shown around various UK sites with potential for a gigafactory for cars and batteries.
He has previously told journalists he opened the site in Berlin and not the UK partly because of Brexit.
Bloomberg estimates Mr Musk’s net worth to be around $228bn.
That’s based largely on the value of his shares in Tesla, of which he owns more than 13%. The company’s stock began to soar in value in 2020 as the firm’s production increased and it started to deliver regular profits.