Wes Streeting as condemned Elon Musk’s “ridiculous” claim that Jess Phillips should be jailed for opposing a fresh government inquiry into child grooming gangs.

The health secretary said the world’s richest man was “ill-informed” after he used X, the social media platform he owns, to attack the safeguarding minister.

Musk also suggested that Phillips was trying to protect Keir Starmer, who he accused of failing to prosecute the gangs when he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service.

Posting on X, the social media platform he owns, Musk said: “In the UK, serious crimes such as rape require the Crown Prosecution Service’s approval for the police to charge suspects.

“Who was the head of the CPS when rape gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice? Keir Starmer, 2008 -2013.

“Who is the boss of Jess Phillips right now? Keir Stamer. The real reason she’s refusing to investigate the rape gangs is that it would obviously lead to the blaming of Keir Stamer (head of the CPS at the time).”

Downing Street has refused to be drawn into a fresh of words with Musk, who is a close ally of US president-elect Donald Trump.

Asked about Musk’s tirade on Sky News this morning, Streeting said: “Well it’s a ridiculous thing to say, it’s ill-informed, it’s not fair on either of their records.

“As Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer opened up historic cases so that people who got away with it, we went after them.”

He added: “I’m not interested in what [Musk] has got to say about this, I’m interested in what we are doing as a government, which is taking the commitment that the prime minister and Jess Phillips and Yvette Cooper the home secretary have on this issue which is to deliver the real change that victims deserve.”