Nigel Farage blasts Keir Starmer's Elon Musk snub - as Labour launch new war of words

Nigel Farage has hit out at Keir Starmer after Elon Musk was snubbed by not receiving an invitation to yesterday's international investment summit.

Hundreds of major business figures were invited to St Paul's yesterday as Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves attempted to bang the drum for Britain's economy, describing the country as "back".

However the Tesla/SpaceX/X owner was notably not invited to the shindig, with reports he was snubbed because of his rows this summer with the PM over freedom of speech.

Taking to Mr Musk's social media platform this morning, Nigel Farage demanded to know why the world's riches man had not been invited to the summit.

Mr Farage said: "The one man they haven't invited is the world's most amazing guy, Elon Musk."

"Whether it's buying this platform, the incredible space missions, whether its his cars, whatever it is if there's anybody who is the world's greatest entrepreneur, who should have been invited to this summit, it's Elon Musk.

"But Labour don't like him - you know why? Because he believes in free speech.

"Well we can't have that now can we?"

In September Sir Keir entered into another war of words with the X owner after he claimed people shouldn't go to the UK because the government was "releasing paedophiles to imprison people for social media posts".

The furious accusation came after months of tweets criticising the Prime Minister as "two-tier Keir" during the summer racism riots.

Reacting to the claim, Sir Keir dismissed the allegation, arguing: "What he said is in stark contrast to the very strong view around the breakfast table this morning."

Turning to Mr Musk specifically he said he would welcome investment into the UK by any of his businesses, despite the pair's dire relationship.

The PM added: "Obviously, I encourage investment from anywhere, and so I don't want to be misunderstood on this.

Last night a Labour MP issued renewed criticism of Mr Musk, saying that Westminster's reliance on his social media platform is "totally wrong".

Josh Simons, a close ally of the Prime Minister's, said SW1 needs to wean itself off X, formerly Twitter, because Mr Musk is deliberately manipulating the algorithm to boost his right-wing political views.

He warned that MPs and others are 'dangerously addicted' to the platform and he is personally keen not to "overuse" it.

Mr Simons fumed: "I think that Twitter's algorithm, its ranking model, which determines what we see on Twitter when we open it, has manifestly changed since Elon Musk took over. Not least because I don't think I've ever liked anything that he said ever, and I see loads of him all the time, and I really don't want to.

"I've even said: 'Show less of this,' and there he is, every time. And that's a sure sign - when a founder and owner of a company, you see more of them on an algorithm, despite not liking them - [of] something going on."

He added: "I think that it is totally and completely wrong and harmful to British democracy that the Westminster bubble gets to know each other through a ranking model designed by a man who's spending his life campaigning for Donald Trump. I think that it's shortsighted of us all."