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Louise Thomas
Editor
The minister in charge of social media and digital technology has not communicated directly with X/Twitter owner Elon Musk, after the platform was linked to the summer riots.
Sources close to Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science innovation and technology, have said that the two men have not spoken and there has been no attempt yet to reach out to the world’s richest man.
Sources close to Mr Kyle have explained that he is connected to Mr Musk through a degree of separation in that they have a number of mutual connections and when the billionaire social media platform owner posts people will often contact the minister.
But after the billionaire went on a social media blitz of toxic posts against the government around the time of the far-right riots, the two men have yet to meet or talk directly. This is despite social media, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, space travel and the internet all being major items in the minister’s huge portfolio and fields led by Mr Musk.
The revelation comes after news that Mr Musk has been snubbed for chancellor Rachel Reeves’ investment summit in London even though she has invited controversial Gulf nations including the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to the event despite concerns over their human rights records.
Ms Reeves is understood to be keen to rebuild relations with the UAE after anger there that the previous government blocked a deal to buy The Daily Telegraph. It is understood it left the UAE feeling humiliated and unsure they could trust the UK as an investment destination.
But the biggest surprise omission from the investment summit is Mr Musk, who is also behind investments in space travel and Tesla electric cars.
Mr Musk was the guest of honour when former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak hosted the world’s first summit on artificial intelligence last year, but Musk has been a severe critic of the Keir Starmer government. The billionaire spent much of the summer attacking Sir Keir’s actions in swiftly ending the far-right riots and meting out justice to those involved.
The X owner used his platform to attack the prime minister as “two-tier Keir”, a reference to a conspiracy theory about policing, and claimed the UK is clamping down on free speech.
During the riots, Mr Kyle was on the emergency Cobra committee in his role of being in charge of policing social media and the digital realm.
Mr Musk has responded to his snub from the investment summit with another attack on the UK: “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing paedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts.”
Nevertheless, former Tory business secretary Kemi Badenoch has revealed she is “a huge fan” of Mr Musk.
In an interview with The Spectator, the Conservative leadership hopeful said: “I think Elon Musk has been a fantastic thing for freedom of speech. I will hold my hand up and say, I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk.
“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 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.”
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