Rishi Sunak heaps praise on Elon Musk ahead of cosy sit-down with tech billionaire

The prime minister hailed the controversial billionaire as ‘passionate’ and defended the decision to invite the him to safety summit

Rishi Sunak has heaped praise on Elon Musk ahead of a cosy sit-down with the Tesla tycoon on Thursday night.

The prime minister hailed Mr Musk as “passionate”, adding that he is somebody who has been warning “for a long time” about the risks of artificial intelligence (AI).

He also defended the decision to invite the controversial billionaire to his AI Safety Summit, with Mr Sunak adding that Mr Musk is “a leading developer of AI technology himself, so he understands this space particularly well”.

Mr Sunak will head from the summit in Bletchley Park back to London for a live-streamed interview with Mr Musk, streamed on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which is owned by the tycoon.

The discussion with Mr Musk – who has warned that AI could lead to “civilization destruction” – represents a coup for the PM as he attempts to be seen as a world leader on the cutting-edge technology.

Quizzed over whether it is appropriate to give a “special welcome for someone who is criticised for spreading disinformation and endorsing unverified posts,” Mr Sunak repeated that Mr Musk has been calling for guardrails on AI for “a very long time,” and is “a leading developer of AI technology himself.”

In Politico’s Power Play podcast, Mr Sunak said host Anne McElvoy was “truing to personalise it” and “this is not just about him”, touting the scores of business chiefs and world leaders attending his Bletchley Park summit.

And quizzed again over disinformation on X, Mr Sunak said: “What we’ve done here in the U.K. is we’ve passed something called the Online Safety Act, which again, I think is on the forward-leaning edge of what other countries have done.

“That gives us and the regulators here the power to compel large social media companies to remove harmful or illegal content from their platforms,” Sunak added. “It gives the regulator the power to fine them when that isn’t being done.”

It came as Mr Sunak denied he was auditioning for a job in tech after his time in Downing Street, telling the BBC his summit was “about doing what is right in the long term interests of this country”.

Mr Musk has been involved in a series of political controversies. Most recently, the unpredictable X and Tesla boss accused SNP leader Humza Yousaf of being a “blatant racist” for pointing out that the heads of Scotland’s institutions were white.

In a podcast last month, he said he bought the social media platform X to save the world from a “mind virus” that has taken hold in San Francisco and could spell “the end of civilization”.

Meanwhile, EU commissioner Thierry Breton has said there are indications X under Mr Musk is hosting “fake and manipulated images and facts ... such as repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games”.