The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has not been invited to the British government’s International Investment Summit in response to his social media posts during last month’s unrest in the country, according to the BBC.

Violence has spread across the UK after a knife attack in Southport killed 3 children attending a dance class. The tech entrepreneur posted on the X platform, formerly Twitter, predicting civil war in the UK and repeatedly attacking the prime minister.

The summit in October is seen as important as Prime Minister Keir Starmer hopes to attract tens of billions in business funding from the world’s biggest investors.

Mr Musk went to last year’s event and had a starring role at November’s AI Summit, including a chat with then-prime minister Rishi Sunak.

What happened

During the August riots, Mr Musk shared, and later deleted, a conspiracy theory about the UK building “detention camps” in the Falkland Islands for rioters, on X – the social media platform he owns.

At the time ministers said his comments were “totally unwarranted” and “quite deplorable”.
The BBC believes this is why he has not been invited to join hundreds of the world’s biggest investors at the event on October 14.

The government sees the event as a huge opportunity to attract foreign investment to grow the UK economy. Labor pledged before the general election to hold this event within its first 100 days in office.

Under the Conservatives, Mr Musk, who owns or runs X, Tesla and SpaceX, has been quietly eyeing various UK locations with a possible car and battery gigafactory.

He is a regular at the corresponding French summit. In July, he attended a three-hour luncheon of top executives with President Emmanuel Macron ahead of the Olympics earlier this summer.

Under the ownership of the site formerly known as Twitter, Musk lifted the ban on far-right figures, including the group Britain First.

The UK is considering a tougher internet safety law after misinformation played a role in widespread racist disorder in August.

Who is Elon Musk and how much is his fortune?

He is the richest man in the world and has used his platform to make his views known on a huge range of issues.

Bloomberg estimates his net worth to be around $228 billion.

This is largely based on the value of his shares in Tesla, of which he owns more than 13%. The company’s stock value soared – some say unjustifiably – in 2020 as the company’s production increased and it began to deliver regular profits.

Since bursting onto the Silicon Valley scene more than two decades ago, the 53-year-old entrepreneur has held audiences spellbound.

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk showed his entrepreneurial flair early on, going door-to-door with his brother selling homemade chocolate Easter eggs and creating his first computer game at age 12.

Musk, who became a US citizen in 2002, has long resisted attempts to characterize his politics — calling himself “half-Democrat, half-Republican,” “political moderate” and “independent.”

He says he voted for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and — reluctantly — Joe Biden, all Democrats.

In recent years, however, he has supported Donald Trump, who is a Republican. Musk formally endorsed the former president for a second term in 2024 after his assassination attempt.