French President Emmanuel Macron is to meet billionaire
businessman Elon Musk on Monday to discuss joint projects six months after
their last encounter in the United States, his office said.
The two men will talk about the “attractiveness of France
and its industries”, Macron’s office announced, with the head of state hoping
for fresh investment.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told the BFMTV broadcaster
that “negotiations are ongoing” with the boss of Twitter and Tesla, who is in
Paris for a meeting of 200 foreign business leaders with the French government.
Le Maire gave no details of Monday’s talks with Musk, saying
simply that “all of today’s investments are the fruit of months or even years
of negotiations”.
During a US trip in December, Macron held an unannounced
face-to-face meeting with Musk, saying later the two had had a “clear and
honest” discussion during an hour-long meeting, including on electric cars and
batteries.
He had also conveyed to Musk his — and Europe’s — concerns
about content moderation on Twitter since Musk bought the influential platform.
“Transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of
content moderation and protection of freedom of speech: efforts have to be made
by Twitter to comply with European regulations,” Macron tweeted after the
meeting
