Egypt tells Elon Musk its pyramids were not built by aliens - BBC News
Egypt invited the billionaire to visit, after he appeared to tweet support for conspiracy theorists.
The tombs of the pharaohs were constructed thousands of years ago

Egypt has invited billionaire Elon Musk to visit the country and see for himself that its famous pyramids were not built by aliens.

The SpaceX boss had tweeted what appeared to be support for conspiracy theorists who say aliens were involved in the colossal construction effort.

But Egypt's international co-operation minister does not want them taking any of the credit.

She says seeing the tombs of the pyramid builders would be the proof.

The tombs discovered in the 1990s are definitive evidence, experts say, that the magnificent structures were indeed built by ancient Egyptians.

On Friday, the tech tycoon tweeted: "Aliens built the pyramids obv", which was retweeted more than 84,000 times.

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Egypt's Minister of International Co-operation Rania al-Mashat responded on Twitter, saying she followed and admired Mr Musk's work.

But she urged him to further explore evidence about the building of the structures built for pharaohs of Egypt.

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Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass also responded in a short video in Arabic, posted on social media, saying Mr Musk's argument was a "complete hallucination".

"I found the tombs of the pyramids builders that tell everyone that the builders of the pyramids are Egyptians and they were not slaves," EgyptToday quotes him as saying.

Mr Musk did later tweet a link to a BBC History site about the lives of the pyramid builders, saying: "This BBC article provides a sensible summary for how it was done."

There are more than 100 surviving pyramids but the most famous is the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt - standing at more than 450ft (137m).

Most of them were built as tombs - a final resting places for Egypt's royalty.

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Who is Elon Musk? Meet the meme-loving magnate behind SpaceX and Tesla...published in 2021

Mr Musk is known for his prolific and at times erratic tweeting. He once told CNBC: "Twitter's a war zone. If somebody's gonna jump in the war zone, it's, like, 'Okay, you're in the arena. Let's go!'"
• None How were the pyramids made?

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