Elon Musk would be welcome at future UK investment summits if and when he had investment programmes the UK could bid for, a cabinet minister has said before a major business event in London.
The remarks came as a group of private equity firms, insurers and tech firms joined five major banks in writing a joint letter saying it was “time to invest in Britain”, in a boost for Keir Starmer, who was opening the event on Monday.
Musk had reacted angrily following reports he had not been invited to the summit, in the wake of controversial comments about the summer’s riots, in which the tech and space billionaire said civil war was “inevitable” in the UK and made a series of false claims about the disorder.
But Peter Kyle, the science and technology secretary, said Musk had not been barred – it was simply that his companies did not currently offer the sort of investment streams for which the UK could bid.
“Elon Musk has never come to these sorts of events, under any government,” Kyle told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“We are out there inviting people to come to this summit who are already open to investing, and they have investment programmes that are under way. Elon Musk would have been very, very welcome if he’d had an open investment programme that we could have latched on to.
“There are lots of businesses, who are great businesses that we want to work with, and Elon Musk being one of them – when he has an investment programme which is open and under way.
“We would love to engage with Elon Musk if he wants to open up an investment programme and there is global competition for it. Believe me, we will be first in line and I will be first in line, knocking on his door to try and get that investment here.”
In an earlier interview on BBC One’s Breakfast, Kyle praised the achievement of Musk’s SpaceX company in managing to catch the booster stage from its Starship rocket in a pair of robotic arms on Sunday.
“I was watching slack-jawed in amazement at the staggering achievement that he had yesterday, to see that booster rocket coming back down to Earth again,” Kyle said.
While the buildup to the summit has seen some controversies, notably including a bruising row with the Dubai-based owner of P&O Ferries over its employment practices, the letter co-signed by the banks will be welcomed by ministers.
The 14 signatories to the letter to the Times include JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi and UBS, as well as the insurers Aviva and L&G, private equity firms Blackstone and KKR, and a series of tech companies.
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The companies said an already attractive investment environment in the UK had been boosted by greater political stability: “We are optimistic about the future of the economy, and believe it is time to invest in Britain.”
In his keynote speech, Starmer is to promise to slash red tape and “rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment”.
“We’ve got to look at regulation where it is needlessly holding back the investment, to take our country forward,” he is to say.
“Where it is stopping us building the homes, the datacentres, warehouses, grid connectors, roads, train lines, you name it, then mark my words – we will get rid of it. We will rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment and we will make sure that every regulator in this country takes growth as seriously as this room does.”
Asked whether that was the same as regulating less, he said: “It’s different. You don’t have to cut corners to get innovation through the regulatory landscape.”