In a bizarre twist, it’s come to light that Tesla CEO Elon Musk attempted to gain entry to Davos, the annual week-long meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) that kicked off yesterday in Switzerland. While the tech mogul has publicly lambasted the yearly Davos forum, the WEF’s former head of communications, Adrian Monck, has opened up about a chain of emails that were sent to the organisation in the past from the CEO of SpaceX.
Speaking on Politico’s Power Play podcast on Monday, as reported by The Daily Beast, Monck shed some light on said emails, explaining: “The Forum is very diplomatic. They’ve never shared the begging emails from Elon Musk when he was a bit younger trying to get his foot in the door to go to Davos. But they do exist, and they’re pretty miserable and craven and pathetic.”
For the unaware, every year, Davos — a ski resort in Zurich, Switzerland — plays host to a highly curated body of delegates from across global business, civil society, media, and academia to discuss pressing ecological, geopolitical, and sociological issues and ultimately develop potential solutions. The focus of this year’s Davos forum is “A Call for Collaboration in the Intelligent Age” and takes place in the same week as Donald Trump‘s inauguration.
Interestingly, back in 2022, Musk took to X/Twitter to slam Davos and the WEF, writing: “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“
Furthermore, a few weeks later, the tech mogul even compared the WEF to the imageboard website 4Chan and then mocked a video of founder Klaus Schwab’s 2023 opening remarks, writing: “How is WEF/Davos even a thing? Are they trying to be the boss of Earth!?“
The event’s organisers, meanwhile, were less than impressed by Musk’s disparagement, and openly confirmed that Musk had not been invited to the Davos forum. Going further, Monck explained that Musk is not the only famous businessman to attempt to get into Davos. “It’s nothing particularly new,” Monck said. “There’s a lot of people who’ve turned their noses up at Davos who privately have tried every single ruse imaginable to get through the front door.”
In other related news, Musk has reportedly been accused of cheating in Path of Exile 2 and has even tried to justify his cheating. Meanwhile, the SpaceX CEO has also downplayed his recent failed spacecraft launch as “entertainment.”