South Africa: Tesla owner Elon Musk met with President Cyril Ramaphosa to discuss the investment in the country. He met with Lesotho’s Prime Minister – Sam Matekane to discuss the connectivity in Lesotho.
The meeting between the President and the South African-American billionaire Elon Musk was held during his visit to the US for the Summit, where he led a R2 trillion investment drive. Ramaphosa is in the country right now for a high-level general debate of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York.
As per the presidency, the president along with the government officials will also undertake several engagements that focuses on economic diplomacy initiatives. Among them was a meeting with the Tesla founder during the general assembly.
President Ramaphosa met with Elon Musk on Monday, where the two spoke about the investment in South Africa.
Glimpses of the meeting were shared by the President Cyril Ramaphosa, which is owned by the Elon Musk himself. The South African government appreciated the meeting and said that it was ‘great meeting Ramaphosa’.
Cyril Ramaphosa also addressed the South Africa-USA Business Forum at the New York Stock Exchange on the same day, driving to secure R2-trillion in investment for the country.
Considering this Ramaphosa said that the far-reaching structural reforms they implemented over the past six years have opened up the country to increase the levels of investment that continues to grow.
According to him this has been particularly evident in the clean energy sector that has attracted significant investment since the beginning of the mobilisation drive. Ramaphosa also mentioned about the efforts presented by the country to het off the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list.
Reportedly, South Africa was grey-listed by the FATF, last year in February 2023 for not complying with the international standards related to money laundering and addressing the illicit financial flows.
The FATF found the country that had serious weaknesses when assessing the deficiencies in the Anti-Money Laundering in the country and the Combating of the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CTF) regime.
President also referred that in November 2023, the FATF noted that they have made progress in strengthening measures to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing and upgraded them. He added further that they expect to progress more in the regard to next report that is scheduled for October.