Elon Musk hit back at Britain on Thursday, accusing the government of releasing people convicted of child sex abuse while jailing people for social media posts.
The US billionaire has not been invited to next month’s summit after posting on his X platform in relation to the violent, racist anti-immigration riots that took place in Britain last month, the BBC reported.
Britain’s Department of Trade and Commerce and Finance did not respond to requests for comment on the BBC report or Musk’s response.
“I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted paedophiles in order to put people in prison for social media posts,” Musk said on X in response to a post on the BBC report.
More than 1,700 prisoners were released earlier this month by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government to tackle overcrowding in prisons in England and Wales. Those serving sentences for sexual offences were not included in the scheme.
The government and others criticised Musk, who has nearly 200 million followers on X, for posts he made in August about Britain. In one of those posts, he said civil war was “inevitable” as the country was rocked by riots that saw right-wing groups attack refugee hotels and mosques.
A spokesman for Starmer said at the time that there was “no justification” for such comments. More than 1,000 arrests have been made in connection with the riots, and some people have been jailed for spreading racial hatred on social media.
The investment summit next month will be attended by leaders of global technology and financial groups including BNY Mellon and Blackstone. The Labor government, in power since July, is hoping to attract investors to boost the economy.
Musk, who met French President Emmanuel Macron for the “Choose France” summit in Paris in May, was last seen in public in London last November, when he attended an AI security summit and was subsequently interviewed by former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
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