UK Government Snubs Elon Musk Over Investment Summit
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has not been invited to the UK government’s International Investment Summit next month, the BBC understands.
The Government is not inviting Musk, whose personal wealth is estimated at US$228bn, because of his social media posts amplifying last month’s riots across the UK in response to the murder of three children in a stabbing attack, according to BBC economics editor Faisal Islam.
Musk immediately hit back on X, the social media platform he owns, posting: “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.”
Although Musk was invited to last year’s Global Investment Summit, he did not attend. Instead, he was the star attraction at last November’s AI summit where then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak interviewed him one-on-one in a fireside chat.
The Conservative government tried to woo Musk by showing him around various UK sites with potential to build a gigafactory for Tesla cars and batteries.
This year’s International Investment Summit is due to take place on 14 October with the aim of attracting tens of billions in inward funding for business from the world’s biggest investors.
The previous government announced £29.5bn of inward investment at last November’s summit and Labour hopes to surpass that figure in October.
Coming two weeks ahead of the Budget on 30 October, the Government is billing the summit as a huge opportunity to attract foreign investment to grow the UK economy.
Up to 300 industry leaders will be invited to catalyse investment in the UK.
Larry Fink, CEO and chairman of BlackRock, is being lined up to attend, according to Sky News.
Executives from BNY Mellon, Blackstone and CyrusOne have all confirmed their attendance at next month’s event.
The Labour Party committed before the General Election to hold the event within its first 100 days in office.
Wrong way round
However, several business leaders at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool this week questioned the timing of the investment summit, because it will take place while the Government is still deciding what will be in the Budget.
“It’s the wrong way round,” Stephen Phipson, chief executive of Make UK, which represents 20,000 manufacturing firms across the country, told The Guardian. “There is concern about the timing, coming two weeks before the Budget.”
Phipson said that attendees will want to know that the Government’s economic priorities are before committing investment.
One source told The Guardian that the Government had only started to approach companies within the past two weeks about the summit, expected to take place in central London, which is tight for attending this scale of event.
The Government is also proposing to charge companies up to £250,000 for sponsorship, which one source grumbled was the equivalent of spending “hundreds of thousands of pounds for a photo opportunity” with Prime Minister Keir Starmer or King Charles.
Announcing October’s summit, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said that it would be “an opportunity to meaningfully engage with the world’s leading businesses and investors, and to continue to build long-term relationships that will drive investment into the UK in the months and years ahead”.
Among those who have attended previous summits were JPMorganChase chief executive Jamie Dimon, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and Ignaciio Galan, chairman of Iberdrola, the Spanish owner of Scottish Power.
