Elon Musk pushed Trump's Muslim travel ban to top of White House meeting agenda

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that he took the initiative to ensure that President Donald Trump's travel ban was pushed to the top of the agenda at a meeting of the president's economic advisory council on Friday (3 February).

"At my request, the agenda for yesterday's White House meeting went from not mentioning the travel ban to having it be first and foremost," Musk tweeted on Saturday. "In addition, I again raised climate," he wrote in a separate tweet. "I believe this is doing good, so will remain on council and keep at it. Doing otherwise would be wrong."

Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, who heads the advisory council, told CNBC that the group discussed tax reform, trade, infrastructure and other issues at the meeting, noting that he saw "complete engagement from everybody in the room".

Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch confirmed that Musk did discuss immigration as well. He added that "there were several debates" about immigration and women's issues as well as "an enormous discussion" regarding job creation and regulation.

In December 2016, Musk and Uber's chief executive Travis Kalanick were appointed to the president's Strategic and Policy Forum - a 19-member advisory group that includes JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon, IBM head Ginni Rometty, General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Disney chief executive Bob Iger.

The group will share their individual experiences and knowledge with the president regarding the impact of government policy on economic growth, job creation and productivity.

Musk said he also raised the issue of climate change - a topic that the Trump administration has expressed extreme skepticism about and the president has previously dubbed a "hoax" and "bulls**t".

Silicon Valley executives and tech companies have continued to voice their opposition to Trump's immigration order, citing its impact both on current employees as well as their ability to recruit highly-skilled foreign workers.

Late Friday, a federal judge stayed Trump's travel ban that restricted citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. Following Trump's angry tweets slamming the federal judge's decision and criticising the US judiciary, Musk praised the country's legal system on Sunday, sparking a tweet storm.

Last week, Kalanick decided to quit the group amid mounting pressure and criticism from employees and customers. Uber was also criticised for continuing to operate and disabling surge prices during a taxi work stoppage in New York that was called to protest against Trump's Muslim travel ban. Thousands of people, including celebrities, also pledged to delete the Uber app from their phones and posted screenshots of them doing so on Twitter using the trending hashtag #DeleteUber.

In the wake of the massive backlash, Uber committed to create a $3m (£2.4m) defence fund to help drivers affected by the travel ban.

"Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that," Kalanick said in an internal memo to staff.

Musk, however, decided to stay on two of Trump's advisory councils saying they "simply provide advice and attending does not mean that I agree with actions by the administration".

"I understand the perspective of those who object to my attending this meeting," Musk tweeted shortly after Kalanick's statement. "But I believe at this time that engaging on critical issues will on balance serve the greater good."