Elon Musk appears “reluctant” to give evidence to Parliament about X/Twitter despite his interest in British society, a senior MP has said.
Chi Onwurah, chair of the Commons’ tech committee, in December invited Mr Musk – a key aide to Donald Trump – to give evidence to her committee for its inquiry into social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms.
Speaking to the Mirror, Ms Onwurah said: “He has no qualms about using his platform to say all kinds of things about the British government and British society and yet he seems reluctant to actually come and talk to us where he can have his views explained.”
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Chi Onwurah, chair of the Commons’ tech committee, has invited Elon Musk to give evidence to MPs
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Image:
Philip Coburn/Daily Mirror)
Mr Musk has not officially replied to the invite. But he hit out on X when he first heard of the invitation, saying MPs “will be summoned to the United States of America to explain their censorship and threats to American citizens”. Ms Onwurah added: “If he’s willing to pay for the flights, the committee would be quite open to travelling to talk to him.”
Speaking more widely about Mr Musk’s behaviour on X, in which he criticised the government over the grooming gangs scandal, she said she was “shocked” by his ” aggressive attacks on British politicians”.
“So I’m hoping that Elon Musk will bring himself to our committee so that we can understand what his approach is to freedom of speech and misinformation and harms and that he’s not going to hide behind the fact that he’s in the UK,” she added.
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The Labour MP admitted she was concerned about whether we were at a “low point” that would improve when online safety laws properly kick in later this year, or whether “we are falling off a cliff further down”.
She added that Tech Secretary Peter Kyle told her committee he’d be standing up for British citizens against the tech giants but warned him she would ask him the “hard questions” on how he thinks he’s doing when he is next called to give evidence.
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