By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The World Economic Forum says billionaire Elon Musk wasn’t on the guest list for the annual meeting of business executives, global leaders and cultural trend-setters in Davos, Switzerland — despite what the Twitter owner claims.
Notables from European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen to actor Idris Elba are gathering in the ritzy Alpine town this week to talk about global issues ranging from war to climate change and technology’s effects on security.
Musk wasn’t there, though he says he was invited. Forum spokesman Yann Zopf knocked that down Tuesday, saying the last time the Tesla CEO got an invitation was “not this year and not recently — last time in 2015.”
Musk said in a tweet Dec. 22: “My reason for declining the Davos invitation was not because I thought they were engaged in diabolical scheming, but because it sounded boring af lol.”
Zopf added that “Musk never registered for any annual meeting in Davos.”
Musk did not immediately respond to requests from The Associated Press for comment Tuesday.
The gathering has been criticized for a lack of concrete action that emerges after a series of sessions and speeches while the forum itself has been the target of online conspiracy theories from those who believe the forum involves a group of elites manipulating global events for their own benefit.
Multibillionaire Musk, one of the world’s richest people, can certainly afford the right to attend Davos.
Forum members pay between 120,000 to 850,000 Swiss francs ($130,000-$921,000) for annual “partnerships” — memberships — depending on the level of affiliation they want.
Forum officials did extend invitations to Musk, as the boss of Tesla, to join a few times in the 2010s — the last being in 2015, but he never registered, and never attended the annual meeting, Zopf said.
Many executives still trek to Davos to ride the coattails of the meeting and hobnob with corporate executives who flock to the town, at times taking potshots of the forum from the sidelines. Richard Branson, the British tycoon behind Virgin, has reputedly come several times for example, without attending the meeting itself.
Musk might be a bit busy to be palling around with the powerful in snowy Switzerland anyway.
While still grappling with the fallout from buying Twitter last year for $44 billion, Musk is facing trial over his tweet about taking Tesla private in 2018.
Jury selection begins this week and he’ll have to explain his actions under oath in court in San Francisco after tweeting that he had lined up the financing to pay for a $72 billion buyout of the electric carmaker, which never happened. It culminated in a $40 million settlement with U.S. securities regulators that also required him to step down as the company’s chairman.
He’s also planning to step down as CEO but remain owner of Twitter, which he succeeded in taking private last summer but has alienated some users and advertisers with chaotic job cuts and changes to content moderation policies.
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