Musk calls for boycott of ‘Soviet’ UK over business summit snub

Elon Musk has stepped up his war of words with the UK government after being denied an invitation to an upcoming business investment summit.
Responding to the news of the snub, the Tesla billionaire said: “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted paedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts.”
The owner of X has not been asked to attend the International Investment Summit by the new administration following a spat with Sir Keir Starmer over the role that social media platforms played in the summer riots.
Violence flared around the UK after three children were killed in an attack in Southport. Starmer told social media companies at the time: “Violent disorder was clearly whipped up online. That is also a crime. It is happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”
In response, Musk goaded the prime minister, blaming Britain’s multiculturalism for the clashes. “If incompatible cultures are brought together without assimilation, conflict is inevitable,” he wrote, adding on a post of a police arrest: “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”
The comments were condemned by ministers as being “totally unjustifiable” and “pretty deplorable”.
In August, jail terms were handed down to some individuals who had encouraged unrest on social media.
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About 1,750 inmates were released early from jails in England and Wales this month in an effort to alleviate the overcrowding crisis. Terrorists and sex offenders are excluded from the scheme.
Musk’s slight by Labour, first reported by the BBC, is a volte face from the previous government, which actively courted the tech entrepreneur.
He was one of the most prominent attendees at the inaugural AI safety summit held in Bletchley Park last November and took part in a live-streamed “fireside chat” with Rishi Sunak as the grand finale to the event.
Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor, said it was a “big loss” for Britain that Musk would not attend and told the BBC that the Tesla owner had previously signalled he was considering building an electric car plant in Britain.
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Kemi Badenoch, who is standing to be Tory leader, said she was a “huge fan of Elon Musk” and praised his stand in favour of free speech.
She told The Spectator: “I look at Twitter before he took over and after: there is a lot more free speech. Yes, there are many, many more things that I see on, well, X, as he calls it, that I don’t like. But I also know that views are not suppressed the way that they were. That there was a cultural establishment — that was very left — that controlled quite a lot of discourse on that platform.”
A spokesman for the Department for Business and Trade declined to comment.
The International Investment Summit will take place on October 14, two weeks before the budget, and aims to bring money and interest into the UK’s business landscape. Hosted by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, and Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, it will bring together 300 business leaders.
It is part of a plan to “make clear that the UK is open for business”, the summit’s announcement said, “as the government resets relations with trading partners around the globe and creates a pro-business environment that supports innovation and high-quality jobs at home”.
While Labour’s leadership spent a good deal of time repairing relations with business through a “smoked salmon and scrambled eggs offensive” in the run-up to the election, a series of proposed policies to strengthen employee rights have left some employers nervous of the new administration.