Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
(Bloomberg) — Billionaire Elon Musk is going to the World Economic Forum in Davos for the first time, after years of trading barbs with the organizers of the annual gathering of plutocrats.
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Musk was confirmed as a last minute addition for a Thursday afternoon session, speaking to BlackRock Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink.
An appearance from Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc., SpaceX and xAI, marks a major shift in the relationship between the world’s richest man and the event that draws world leaders, billionaires and global media to the mountains of Switzerland every January.
It comes on the tails of an appearance by his ally, US President Donald Trump, who spoke on Wednesday for well over an hour in a speech that covered everything from censorship to why the US should control Greenland. Musk was invited last year, but didn’t go.
Musk has in the past called the annual gathering of the world’s elite “boring” and slammed the WEF as a body that’s “increasingly becoming an unelected world government that the people never asked for and don’t want.”
“How is WEF/Davos even a thing? Are they trying to be the boss of Earth!?” he posted on his X social media platform in 2022.
The WEF — a Geneva-based nonprofit that aims to foster collaboration between governments and businesses to “serve society and the planet” — has responded in kind. A spokesman said in 2023 that Musk hadn’t been invited since 2015.
The relationship began to thaw last year when organizers asked the newly elected Trump and Musk to join. The WEF said that Musk was “welcome” last year because of interest in “his new role” in the Trump administration.
While Musk has since stepped away from his place in the Trump administration trying to improve government efficiency, he’s at the center of a number of key global conversations, from SpaceX’s role in providing internet access in places like Iran and Ukraine to to the outcry around sexualized images generated by his Grok artificial intelligence tool.
–With assistance from Chad Thomas.
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