Kushner presents ‘master plan’ for Gaza
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is now on stage, outlining plans for the redevelopment of Gaza.
Kushner says the “master plan” will be conducted in phases, including a push on workforce housing, where he suggests could also be a lot of industry, 100% employment and opportunity for everyone.
He’s now showing Davos a property development map of Gaza, and a computer-generated picture of ‘New Gaza’, with coastal tourism.
Here’s the timeline as Kushner showed on screen to delegates.
Jared Kushner speaks after the signing of a Board of Peace charter during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
A slide titled “New Gaza” is seen on a screen during an event announcing the charter for Trump’s Board of Peace initiative. Photograph: Denis Balibouse/ReutersShare
Updated at 08.02 EST
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Closing post
Time to wrap up….Donald Trump has claimed the world is “richer, safer and much more peaceful than it was just one year ago” as he hosted a launch event for his “board of peace” initiative at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
At a signing ceremony for the new organisation, the US president said it would be “one of the most consequential bodies ever created in the history of the world”.
US and Palestinian officials also used the ceremony to lay out a blueprint for the next steps in implementing a ceasefire in Gaza, and putting the territory under the day-to-day control of a Palestinian-run technocratic administration, which has been assembled in Cairo.
The president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner outlined a plan for the next 100 days, including a significant increase in aid deliveries, the rehabilitation of essential infrastructure, such as water, electricity and sewage systems, and the reconstruction of hospitals and bakeries. Kushner also presented an aspirational map of a future Gaza in which the territory had a buffer zone around the border with Israel but was unified, rather than partitioned as it is now.
My colleague Jakub Krupa is covering the latest developments on Greenland, and Ukraine, here:
We’ll be back tomorrow for the final day of the World Economic Forum. One more heave….
Sir Tony Blair’s presence at the launch of Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” has prompted criticism in London, the Financial Times reports.
As we blogged this morning, the former Labour prime minister was hailed by the US president at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, “Thank you, Tony, for being here, we appreciate it,” Trump said.
However, Trump’s decision to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to join the Board of Peace has caused unease in Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
“Putin’s possible involvement puts Tony in a really difficult position,” said one senior minister.
“Presumably, he didn’t know about Putin when he agreed to sign up.”
We spotted Blair chatting with a group including Jared Kushner at the end of the board of peace signing ceremony.
Tony Blair (centre, back) at the board of peace signing in Davos Photograph: Heather StewartShare
Updated at 11.28 EST
Musk: better to be an optimist and wrong rather than a pessimist and right
On a personal note, Musk says he was inspired by reading books about the future.
He adde he wants to make science fiction “not fiction forever”, talking about a Star Trek-style future of massive space ships zipping around the place.
Larry Fink, on the stage with Musk, likes the sound of this – he’d like to be beamed back to New York at the end of Davos [could I possibly be beamed back to the UK right now, Scotty?]
Q: Do you think you’ll go to Mars in your lifetime?
Musk suggests he does, rolling out an old joke about how he’s like to die on Mars “but not on impact”.
And he wraps up with another gag about how it’s better to be “an optimist and wrong rather than a pessimist and right.”
This goes down well with the Davos crowd, who give him a cheery sendoff from the stage.
Musk tells Davos that some insurance companies have said that Tesla’s full-self driving is so safe that they’re offering half-price insurance if drivers use it.
Self-driving cars is “essentially a solved problem at this point”, he declares.
[Essentially is doing a lot of work. Last October, US automobile safety regulators opened an investigation into Tesla vehicles equipped with its full self-driving (FSD) technology over traffic-safety violations after a series of crashes.
Musk then predicts that Tesla will be selling humanoid robots to the public by the end of next year.
[We shall see! Musk has made some optimistic forecasts for robot deployment before; three years ago, he said the goal is to make a useful humanoid robot “as quickly as possible”].
Unfortunately, the US tariff barriers for solar are extremely high, as most of production is in China, WEF hears.
The limiting factor for AI deployment is fundamentally electrical power, Musk continues (rather than production of chips, or the rollout of fabrication plans).
He then talks about China’s ‘tremendous’ growth in electricity output, and tells Davos that a 100 mile by 100 mile area of solar would be enough to power the entire US.
More blue-sky thinking from Musk: he suggests aging is a solvable problem (although isn’t clear how it will be solved), suggesting its highly likely that ways to “extend and maybe even reverse” life will be found.
There would be an “explosion” in the global economy, and unprecedented growth, if the world reaches a point of ubiquitous, essentially free, artificial intelligence and ubiquitous robots, Musk continues.
He’s outlining a future where all human needs are saturated, with everyone on earth having a robot of their own, to watch over their children, pet or elderly parents.
I think we will have those things.
I’m very optimistic about the future. I think we’re heading to a future of amazing abundance.
Updated at 10.44 EST
Musk says the goal of his companies is about maximising the possibility that civilisation has a great future, and to expand consciousness beyond Earth.
SpaceX, for example, is developing rocket technology that can extend life and consciousness beyond Earth to the moon, Mars and “eventually to other star systems”.
Musk jokes (I think!) that he’s often asked ‘are their aliens?’. He replies “I am one, but they don’t believe me”.
[he’s made this joke, before, so he’s a consistent alien if so]
Updated at 10.45 EST
Musk: Is it the Piece (of Greenland) Summit?
Musk suggest he may deliver five newsworthy quotes…
And then he suggests that Donald Trump’s new initiative might actually be called the “Piece summit”.
He jokes about getting “a little piece of Greenland”… before insisting “What we want is peace”.