Rishi Sunak suggests more should ‘give up security of regular pay cheque’ – as Musk warns of humanoid robots that can ‘chase you anywhere’
Rishi Sunak has encouraged people to be “comfortable failing” when they start businesses during a conversation with billionaire Elon Musk.
The pair spent close to an hour talking at an event in central London where journalists were invited but not allowed to ask questions. Business leaders were given a chance to put questions to the duo.
They spoke about how to encourage people to start their own businesses. They also ranged onto topics like how to stop killer robots.
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Mr Sunak spoke about how, as prime minister, his job was to make the country start-up friendly, hinting at reforms that may be coming in the autumn statement – including on pensions.
The prime minister said Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has got a “bunch of incredible reforms to unlock capital from all the people who have it and deploy it into growth equity” – but they’re a work in progress.
Mr Sunak went on to say another challenge for encouraging start-ups was “how do you transpose that culture from places like Silicon Valley across the world where people are unafraid to give up the security of a regular pay cheque to go and start something, and be comfortable with failure.”
He added: “You’ve got to be comfortable failing, and knowing that’s just part of the process. That’s a tricky cultural thing to do overnight, but it’s an important part of I think creating that kind of environment.”
Mr Musk – who is the world’s richest man – told Mr Sunak – who is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds – that someone’s first start-up failing “shouldn’t be a catastrophic, career-ending thing”.
The business leader said that, since starting a company is “high risk, high reward”, that people need incentives.
The pair did not take questions from journalists. Pic: No 10 Downing Street
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Mr Sunak said that he agrees, and said that relative to many European countries and California, the UK has much lower capital gains tax.
The event, which came after Mr Sunak’s two-day AI safety conference near Milton Keynes, saw the pair also speak about killer robots and other aspects of technology.
Mr Musk described artificial intelligence as “a magic genie” that grants you limitless wishes.
On robots, Mr Musk emphasised the need to have an off-switch – what some might call a kill-switch – for humanoid cyborgs.
“A humanoid robot can basically chase you anywhere,” he said, adding, “it’s something we should be quite concerned about. If a robot can follow you anywhere, what if they get a software update one day, and they’re not so friendly any more?”
Mr Sunak said “we’ve all watched” movies about robots that end with the machines being switched off.
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Labour’s shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth said: “How out of touch is Rishi Sunak? After 13 years of the Tories, the public are enduring the worst cost of living crisis in memory and he is spending his time telling Elon Musk that he wishes they would give up their jobs and be ready to fail.
“He hasn’t got a clue.”
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Nigel Farage has spoken about his aspirations as Reform UK party leader and insists he could become prime minister.
He told Sky’s political correspondent Darren McCaffrey the prospect of taking over at Number 10 at some point “may not be probable, but it’s certainly possible”.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Reform UK annual conference in Birmingham, he also described his intention to change the party and make it more democratic.
“I don’t want it to be a one man party. Look, this is not a presidential system. If it was, I might think differently about it. But no, it’s not. We have to be far more broadly based,” he said.
He also accepted there were issues with how the party was perceived by some during the general election.
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Highlights of Farage’s conference speech
“We had a problem,” he admitted. “Those that wished us harm use the racist word. And we had candidates who genuinely were.”
Earlier the party leader and Clacton MP gave his keynote speech at the conference, explaining how they intend to win even more seats at the next general election.
He also called out the prime minister for accepting free gifts and mocked the candidates in the Tory leadership race.
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Farage jokes about PM accepting gifts
But he turned to more serious points, too – promising that Reform UK will “be vetting candidates rigorously at all levels” in future.
Addressing crowds in Birmingham, Mr Farage said the party has not got “time” or “room” for “a few extremists to wreck the work of a party that now has 80,000 members”.
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“The infant that Reform UK was has been growing up,” he said in his speech and pointed towards the success of the Liberal Democrats at the general election.
He told delegates his party has to “model ourselves on the Liberal Democrats” which secured 72 seats on a smaller popular vote share than Reform UK.
He said: “The Liberal Democrats put literature and leaflets through doors repeatedly in their target areas, and despite the fact they haven’t got any policies at all. In fact, the whole thing’s really rather vacuous, isn’t it? But they manage with a vote much lower than ours to win 72 seats in parliament.”
Reform won more than four million votes in July, and 14% of the vote share – more than the Lib Dems.
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