Elon Musk’s attack on the government’s handling of grooming gangs is “misjudged and certainly misinformed”, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said.

Tech multi-billionaire Musk has posted a series of messages on his social media site X, accusing Sir Keir Starmer of failing to prosecute gangs that systematically groomed and raped youthful girls, and calling for safeguarding minister Jess Phillips to be jailed.

Asked about his comments, Streeting said “this government takes the issue of kid sexual exploitation incredibly seriously”.

He invited Musk to “roll up his sleeves and work with us” against rape gangs.

The Tories have also criticised Musk for “sharing things that are factually inaccurate”.

While visiting a worry home in Carlisle on Friday, Streeting said Labour was getting “on with the job” of implementing the recommendations of the independent inquiry into kid sexual abuse led by Professor Alexis Jay “in packed”.

He told reporters: “Some of the criticisms Elon Musk has made I ponder are misjudged and certainly misinformed.

“But we’re willing to work with Elon Musk who I ponder has got a large role to play with his social media platform to assist us and other countries tackle these solemn issues.

“If he wants to work with us and roll his sleeves up, we’d welcome that.”

Musk, a key adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump, has accused Sir Keir of failing to properly prosecute rape gangs while director of community prosecutions (DPP), and has repeatedly retweeted Reform UK and Conservative MPs calling for a national inquiry.

He also suggested safeguarding minister Jess Phillips “deserves to be in prison” after she rejected a request for the Home Office to order a community inquiry into kid sexual exploitation in Oldham. She said the council should fee a local inquiry instead, as happened in Rotherham and Telford.

The selection was criticised by several elder Tories, despite the previous Conservative government turning down a similar request in 2022.

Tory chief Kemi Badenoch has called for a packed national community inquiry into what she called the UK’s “rape gangs scandal”.

But the event has also criticised Musk for “sharing things that are factually inaccurate” and distanced itself from his call for Phillips to be jailed.

Alicia Kearns – who shadows Phillips as the Conservative spokesperson on safeguarding – told BBC Radio 5 Live Musk had “fallen prone” to sharing things on his X platform “without critically assessing them”.

She accused Musk of “drawing away attention from the survivors and from the victims” of rape gangs, and “lionising people like [far-right activist] Tommy Robinson – which is frankly risky”.

Reform UK chief Nigel Farage has told the BBC that Musk, the globe’s richest man, is in talks about making a donation to the event. The two men met at Trump’s Florida retreat last month.

There have been numerous investigations into the systematic rape of girls and youthful women by organised gangs, including in Rotherham, Cornwall, Derbyshire and Bristol.

Inquiries into Greater Manchester Police’s handling of historical kid sex abuse cases in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale have also been carried out.

Earlier on Friday, health minister Andrew Gwynne suggested Musk “ought to focus” on US politics, where he is set to act as an unelected adviser to the Trump administration on cutting federal spending.

Speaking to LBC Radio, Gwynne added that kid grooming was a “very solemn issue”, pointing to previous investigations which had taken place into sexual abuse scandals.

“There comes a point where we don’t require more inquiries, and had Elon Musk really paid attention to what’s been going on in this country, he might have recognised that there have already been inquiries,” he said.

The Independent Inquiry into kid Sex Abuse (IICSA), which published its final update in 2022, described the sexual abuse of children as an “epidemic that leaves tens of thousands of victims in its poisonous wake”.

It knitted several previous inquiries together alongside its own investigations.

Professor Jay said in November she felt “frustrated” that none of her update’s 20 recommendations to tackle abuse had been implemented more than two years later.

She said: “It’s a challenging subject matter, but it is essential that there’s some community understanding of it.

“But we can only do what we can to press the government to look at the delivery of all of this.

“It doesn’t require more consultation, it does not require more research or talk, it just needs to be done.”